Winter's Chill
by shywr1ter
Summary: S1,ML: Now complete. Max, looking out for Logan yet again, this time up close and personal. An attempt to respond to several DAR challenges. AU.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** DA isn't mine, but no profits made here so no one is losing out.

**A/N:** A flurry of challenges have appeared recently on the DAR board: in a rush of enthusiasm, a group of M/L-aholics have posted a handful of challenges, requests and goads for new fic (some pushing heavy on the fluff.) While they were pretty open-ended and completely out of control, this fic was started in response with one challenge in mind, then another twisted another in. By the end it even addressed a generally despised fic-syndrome currently under discussion.

These challenges and such will be posted at the end of this entry, so as not to give too much away. Be warned: it is _not_ Halloween related, it _is_ AU, and it's... hmmm. Mooshy?

_**WINTER'S CHILL**_

I.

It was seven hours since Logan left for the meet, five since he should have been back, and three since Max started out on her search for him. Knowing only that he'd gone out of the city, out toward one of the county's several lakes, with no more idea of which or how far, Max had no idea what might have befallen Eyes Only on this trip, the one that was not risky in the least, he'd assured her. He'd said that it was fine that she couldn't come; he'd asked her along only for her company and a second opinion on the information, that was all; no danger or uncertainty in the slightest.

_Why the hell did I listen to him?_ she wondered, her heart in her throat as she rode longer and farther, sweeping the back roads, finding no sign of him. _Why the hell don't I just chain him to his computer, so he can't keep getting into trouble and making me understand why Lydecker said that emotions just get in the way..._

_There!_ A metallic glint in the barely remaining daylight; in the cold, grey evening, the sleet and snow of the afternoon had stopped, and the temperature dropped along with the clearing of the sky. _Logan!_ she whispered to herself, seeing the Aztek askew just off the roadway, tilting precariously into the shallow ditch, straddling the road shoulder, no engine noise, no lights ... but the ground at the driver's side door had been roiled with tire tracks – _wheelchair tracks_ – leading out and around... and back? Max barely came to a stop before she hopped off her bike to come around to the window...

...and pulled the door open in a rush, her heart pounding, finding Logan in the driver's seat, unmoving, pale, eyes closed...still... "Logan!"

Nothing. She quickly pulled off her glove to lift her fingers to his neck and to her great relief, found a pulse... but slower and not as strong as was normal for him. His skin was icy...

"Logan!" _Hypothermia?_ The cold would affect him faster than someone with an intact nervous system, or with a better circulatory system than his. "Logan?" This time his eyes opened sleepily and he rocked his head, not lifting it from the headrest, and smiled drunkenly to see her.

"Max? Hey..." He lifted his head from the seat briefly, then let it flop back, smiling happily at her appearance. "I was hoping you'd come," he managed, his slurred words making it sound more like he was a college frat boy at an all-nighter than a stranded motorist, and he watched Max quickly do a once over, her terribly warm palms assessing his cheek, hands and neck... and he supposed his ankles or calves, from her movements. "Hey..." he repeated, unable to find anything more appropriate at the moment.

"Logan, what were you thinking?" she scolded, relief at finding him easing only the first layer of her concern. "And you're wet; what did you do, get out and try to push it out yourself? All this, way out here, for a stupid informant. You'll freeze to death..."

He was shivering. Shivering _again_. '_Shivering uncontrollably_' he thought vaguely, his thoughts unfolding slowly; _did I really know what that meant, before I was shot, before it was harder for my body to keep itself warm, back when I could shift around and stomp and move when I was getting cold?_ "Stupid, stupid, I know; stupid..." he trailed off, shaking his head ... forgetting that he was talking to Max...

"Logan?"

Her voice shook him back to the present, and he blinked toward her. "I just ... it just went off the road ... on some ice, and I..." words slurred even more as he tried to remember, he trailed off once more, frightening Max all over again. Quickly now, she looked around only cursorily as she opened the passenger side, not really too worried at the moment who would see her, and braced herself at the open door, forcing her fear aside so she could function.

"Put it in neutral, Logan" she ordered, firmly. When he didn't move but seemed to be drifting off, she spoke again more forcefully. "Logan. Put the gear into neutral."

He roused a little but blinked, still as if drugged. She leaned across to shift the gear lever into neutral and carefully planted her feet to push the Aztek out of the shallow but icy ditch and back up to the road.

"What the hell were you thinking, coming all this way alone? And no one came by, right? No one who could help, and you know why? Between the gas shortage this month and the hold on sector passes, you're probably the only one within twenty miles of this place..." She muttered, her fears lessened a tiny bit with getting the car back onto the roadway, venting her fears by griping at the nearly-unconscious man.

"...but_ you_ came..." he said softly, like a prayer. The sound of his voice, the trust and yearning she heard made her stop and look into his face, despite the desperation she felt to get him home. His green eyes could barely focus, but they were open, and looking at her with such tenderness...

...but only for a moment; in the next they were rolling back in his head and he slumped...

"Logan! Come on, stay with me..." She pleaded, moving again.

He felt himself, as if at a distance, being tugged and hauled across one seat to the other, and propped upright against the passenger's side seat back. When he felt Max lean across him quickly and caught the scent of her hair passing again under his nose, he realized it was time to assert himself. "Hey..." he managed...

_Click. Shwoomp._

He'd been buckled in, and the door at his right shut securely. The crunching on the gravel outside seemed to telescope away as he fought a losing battle with consciousness, but he knew that the sound was Max, too, and he waited as in his last lucid moments, the driver's side door was pulled open and a terse, unspeaking warrior got behind the wheel.

_His_ wheel. _His_ warrior...

_His Max..._

II.

It was now twenty five minutes after she had gotten Logan back to the penthouse, and Max finally eased herself down to sit at Logan's side, knowing his temperature at 95.7 was at the threshold of dangerous for him, and still wondering if she'd been wrong to bring him here instead of taking him straight to the hospital. She watched his still features, remembering the training she'd had years ago. She was never really expected to use it for herself or her siblings, as they could all withstand extremes of temperature far greater than "ordinary" people could, but nonetheless, it had been provided: _Get victim into a warm room or shelter, removing any wet clothing; warm the center of the body first, with an electric blanket if available, or skin- to- skin contact, with plenty of blankets over all. If victim conscious, give him warm beverages; keep him dry and wrapped in a warm blanket..._

_...and get medical help. _

She thought this would be enough, to bring him home and treat him here, but she would regret it until the day she died if she made another wrong choice – as wrong as when she decided to believe him when he told her that the meet wasn't risky...

Bling was out of town and unavailable by phone; Sam Carr was in surgery. She spoke to one of Sam's assistants and though Max could hear it, in her voice, that the woman thought it would have been _better_ to bring him to emergency, she conceded it was probably treatable at home, as Max described what she had done for him so far. Max also heard the woman's understanding as to why home would be where Logan preferred, knew that Max was caring for him as tenderly as even Sam would ... and that Max would bring him in immediately if Sam directed her to do so. The woman promised to have Sam call as soon as he could...

And so now she sat at his side, watching the unconscious man as he lay in his bed, piled with blankets and quilts, his shudders quieting but still unresponsive. _Warm beverages did nothing for someone still unable to drink them,_ Max worried..._  
_

_Warm the center of the body first, warm the core..._ His temperature was still far too low, and blankets too slow... he didn't have an electric blanket; unable to judge its effect over half his body, he was encouraged to avoid their use...

_So that left skin-to-skin contact_.

But it was Logan ... and skin-to-skin with Logan would be so much harder than with any other, random 'victim'...

_Damn you Lydecker; why do you have to be right about this?_

...skin-to-skin contact with Logan should be saved for when they were _ready_ to be...

...to_ be_ skin to skin...

Standing up suddenly and yanking off her tee shirt, kicking off her boots and nearly ripping off her jeans, she grabbed her tee shirt again and, using it wadded in her hand, she roughly buffed her arms and legs with the fabric, scrubbing all the friction-warmth she could into her own limbs, not sure if it would help but hoping for a faster transfer of her body warmth to his, suddenly angry at herself to have even hesitated a moment before doing what he needed her to do, for such selfish, silly reasons...

Tossing her shirt aside again, Max lifted the sheets and slid in along the nude, still form in the bed, still so cold and clammy... _remove any wet clothing_... Sam's assistant had directed her to get him warm first, before worrying about struggling him into clothing; any inadvertent binding might be more harmful than helpful, anyway, if it constricted circulation and he couldn't tell, even after he awakened...

It was what she'd been _told_ to do, leave him nude; it was what she was _trained_ to do, warm his body with her own ... she shivered herself as she snaked her body along his and wrapped her warm frame around his cold one; she brought her tummy up across his and her cheek on his chest, breathing in his sweet, masculine _Logan_ scent and dared to bring her arms around him, her legs entwined around his, not disturbing the blankets tucked carefully around his feet...

Shakily, she sighed out the breath she was holding and tried to relax, to broaden herself across him and bring herself closer...

...and her fingers traced the strong shoulders and the muscular torso. She found herself nuzzling the soft hair on his chest, sighing out in her tentative embrace. Not exactly necrophilic – he would be fine, she chided, and what was she doing even _comparing_ him to a corpse, even in a very private jest – but it seemed indecent, to be thinking all she was thinking, feeling the strength of the desire she was feeling as she held his naked form to hers, with him so dangerously close to being a corpse for real...

Soon enough it could be hot soup and blankets, warm socks and sweats. Maybe he'd never know about this, she thought, drowsily ... if she played her cards right ... if she managed to hold herself back from the hunger and craving she was feeling for the man she held close... but for now her thoughts wouldn't hurt ... and she let herself imagine, relaxing more deeply into her hope that she really _could_ feel her warmth seeping into him, as she breathed him in and curled into his chest... she let herself imagine...

III.

She woke with a start and realized that what had awakened her was a breath, drawn deep, by the strong chest below hers ... in a momentary alarm that she'd dozed off when she should have been monitoring him closely, she moved her hand out across his shoulder to pause, sensing him, then raise her palm to his cheek, then back down to his chest, relief at his warming form spreading its radiant glow through her own chest as well...

...and with another deep breath, Logan's left hand came up unerringly to curl around Max's right, as it lay protectively on his bare chest...

She looked up to his face, feeling caught, amazed at the look of complete happiness and acceptance on his face, no surprise or embarrassment or ... or was it the lingering effects of the cold? It wasn't the Logan she knew, to be so sanguine awaking to such a scene ... She swallowed, more nervous than she wanted to be, and whispered, "Logan?"

He smiled wider, and lifted her palm to his lips, kissing it gently. "Max..." he murmured happily. He managed to bring his other arm around her form, drawing her even closer than she'd been, when she wrapped herself around him.

Tipping her face up toward his, she looked closer, tracing his brow, gently. "What's going on in there?"

His eyes still closed, he half chuckled. "This one's a good one, Max; you feel so real..." His words softened as his breathing deepened for the moment, dozing ... but in a moment the chuckle was back. "The first part of the dream, though ... it wasn't too cool." It was only a moment before he started chuckling again, to himself, at his weak pun...

Understanding, Max felt her own grin start, and she snuggled back down into his arms, not sure how he'd feel in a few minutes, when she didn't disappear ... but for now, she was wrapped all snuggly and undressed with Logan, who had dreamed about this with her ... would he feel any better to know she'd dreamed about it, too?

* * *

The challenge: x318's demand for **"Logan naked on a bed, no sheets, he must be warmed up somehow,"** (okay, I caved–but technically, no sheets–only blankets and quilts! ;) coupled with**"Logan is sick; Max takes care of him," **a part of a Reilynn challenge.

And possibly: a wink to those who are trying to out-do the next guy with**cliffhangers**?


	2. Chapter 2

**_Disclaimer:_** Please see Chapter 1.

**_A/N:_ **This continues an attempted response to parts of several challenges I threw together in a bucket and dumped out here. Thank you all for your comments and reactions! I was surprised to see so many, and they are truly much appreciated. The lesson? You want reviews, strip Logan down!

**_On another matter:_** A wise and honored mentor has ruled from on high that I am no longer to call these offerings "moosh." Therefore in respect for my betters, this continues the AU from before – be it sap, hokum or squishy-skwee! ; )

**XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO**_**  
**_

_**Winter's Chill**_

**XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO**_**  
**_

IV.

In fuzzy waves and snatches of sensation, Logan felt the world nibbling back, seeking his attention ... he felt swathed in bed linens and blankets and knew that their presence was significant, somehow; he caught the fragrance of Max's shampoo close by and smiled, involuntarily, at the warm form, so close and soft ... he nuzzled her hair and breathed her in, the feel of her velvet skin consuming him...

_...the feel of her **skin**?_

His eyes flew open...

V.

Logan was rousing, his temperature coming back up ... and suddenly everything had shifted from Max administering first aid, to Max lying in Logan's arms, indulging in the fantasy that he might hold her like this one day when he was actually conscious. Thoughts she'd avoided before now threaded through her mind – he'd dreamed about holding her? And _enjoyed_ it? Did she dare let herself believe that Logan Cale saw her as more than just a handy cat burglar...?

Manticore, hardwired into her thoughts, fought back. _The man's unconscious; it's as likely he was rambling and it meant nothing._ But he looked so contented as he held her, could it really be that _she_ made him feel this way? She felt a small surprise to realize how important that was to her, and wondered at the butterflies that were growing in her stomach at the whole prospect...

She wondered how much he'd remember once he was himself again, how they'd handle this, what she'd say, what he'd think. She considered her approach, what attitude she should take when she'd face this with him, what she could possibly say...

...when, just then, Logan cut her time for speculation short...

VI.

She heard him gasp; he then lay perfectly, stiffly still, breathing shallowly as if not to move a muscle, clearly awake, with a sudden awareness of his surroundings. Max imitated the same thickened breathing she'd heard from him, feigning sleep, and Logan exhaled cautiously – shakily. He remained tense and motionless, assessing, apparently – until his hands lifted ever so slowly, away from her, and he raised his head slightly, she thought, away from the pillow. She stifled an unexpected, nervous laugh and wondered if he felt her smile against his chest...

One of his hands started to move now, barely touching her, as he traced down along her side as gingerly as if she'd been made of hot coals, hesitating in sudden interest at finding her bra, moving on to follow the contours of her rib cage and hip, hovering with merest touch while letting his fingertips trail the outline of lace elastic circling her hips. She could tell the very moment he discovered that not only she, but he, had been shed of his clothes, as he'd come to her waist, moved his hand across to his own form, and gasped, suddenly...

"Oh, God..." he breathed...

Max knew she couldn't last – her own uncertain anticipation left her jumpy enough that she couldn't stay quiet much longer, and with his surprise awakening, didn't want to tease him too mercilessly, given his less- than- perfect condition. Still, the joy of having him back and safe, the promise of his recovery, his apparent desire for her, and the payback he deserved for worrying her as he did, all combined to her lead her to murmur in sweet innocence, "So you _are_ awake..." Her hand freed now that he'd dropped it to roam elsewhere, she brought it up under her chin to rest, propped, on his chest, and peered up at him, her pulse quickening in fun and anticipation. _Could he really have dreamed...? _

"Max..." he gulped. He clearly had no idea how he'd gotten there, nor into the unclothed embrace they shared at the moment, but was lucid enough not to admit it just yet – in case he _ought_ to know. "You ... uh... you are, too..." he tried, tentatively. She beamed, and nodded ... waiting. Logan drew a long breath, glancing around briefly, trying to appear as if he wasn't looking for some clue to what was going on...

Max relented slightly, the confusion in the green eyes irresistible. She raised her palm to his forehead in that universal gesture of care, testing his temperature. "How you feeling?" she asked, moving down to lay the back of her hand against his cheek. "Better?"

"Uh ... yeah ... yeah. Thanks..." he bluffed, smiling gamely.

At which she smiled again, offering tentatively, "Logan, it's okay if you don't remember... you may be disoriented for a while yet..."

She wasn't sure she'd ever seen him look so relieved... "Max, I..." he tried, stammering with the thought. "You're... you're nude..." he finally pointed out.

"So are you," she challenged.

His eyes glittered slightly, myopically considering her, as it dawned on him that she was enjoying this – and his discomfort. He grimaced a little at the thought, afraid to even guess what it meant, but tried, "then ... will you be disoriented, too?"

She laughed in her relief, the question striking her somehow as being so Logan that she was sure he'd recover completely. She finally explained, "Logan, you were suffering from exposure – probably hypothermia. You were out of it there, for a while..." Seeing him consider the thought, then nod down toward their intertwined forms in silent question, she shrugged, "standard field technique – got to warm the body and raise the core temp. No electric blankets, so – skin to skin contact was indicated."

"Ah." His eyes softened in understanding – the wrong one – and he let his hands fall away, as if the effort now were too great. Eyes dropping away from hers, he managed a smile of resignation as he nodded, "right."

Max saw it, surprised – it never occurred to her that he wouldn't realize immediately how good this felt – how good _he_ felt – to her. "Logan..." What could she say? "You spent the last several hours impersonating an icicle. If it weren't for that..." She looked into the face she loved, his eyes still averted. Was this – and his sleepy murmurs – enough to let her assume what she was assuming? Her own uncertainties still hovering, and needing to let him recuperate but unwilling to let this moment pass without _some_ promise of more, Max pulled away from him, wrapping one of the blankets up around her as she began to her slip away from his side. "You need to let yourself thaw out – completely. Maybe a rain check – by tomorrow you should be your usual feisty self..." She wavered, looking for response, seeing no change. _Damn it, Max, if you're going to say it, just say it!_ "...and if you wait right there, I could come back and maybe check on you, you know ... warm you up a little more...?"

The green eyes lifted back up to consider her before dropping away again, now sad and wistful. "Yeah; sure..." he agreed, softly. Clearly he didn't believe she'd be back...

Emotions rattling her, Max blurted, "Listen, you..." the tone getting his attention and bringing his eyes back to hers. "Do I have to swallow my pride and admit what I was imagining, while you were just lying there, chillin' out? Did it occur to you that maybe I was afraid that ... that you ... might not be as interested, as I was? As I... _am_?" It was only a heartbeat before the moment dawned on her, what she was saying, and she backed down a little, realizing she _still_ didn't know the answer to that very point. His expression, faintly troubled now, gave nothing away – including any sign of the desire she thought she'd seen before.

She pulled into herself a little, suddenly painfully aware that not only her body, but her heart as well, had been laid bare for him. Unused to the sense of fragility these emotions brought, she offered, apologetically, "What a mess this is, huh?" Afraid to wait for his reaction, she did what she always did and began her retreat, covering the hurt that she expected would follow, covering her form with the blanket as she slid to the side of the bed and started to sit up. "Look, no one else has to know about all this; I'll get you some sweats and give you a few minutes, and fifteen minutes from now we can pretend all this never hap..."

"Max..." His hand raised to her arm and stopped her with a gentle brush of his fingers, his feather touch guiding her to turn again and look at him. After a moment, neither speaking, their eyes locked and sharing far more than words of the hope each held, Logan's hand trailed up to her shoulder, tracing up to her jaw line. Fingertips caressing her cheek, he drew her back. "I don't want to pretend... not anymore..." he said quietly.

Max swallowed ... and looked into the clear green eyes, his scruff and spiky hair dark against the clean, crisp pillowcase...

"I want you here, with me ... like this..."

...and without a word, Max fell back onto the warm, strong chest as his arms welcomed her back.. and she sought his lips in a relieved, yearning kiss...

VII.

"Logan... I'm not kidding; it probably was full-blown hypothermia, and you're supposed to take it easy for a while, even after you feel as if you're warming up. I need to get you some tea, or maybe some soup..." After long moments in Logan's arms, tasting his lips, Max had finally, regretfully pulled back to chide them both. Logan seemed oblivious.

"How can you even think I wouldn't want this?" He was looking for a sign, even still, a promise that her words were true – that she had been, and still was, interested – and spoke a little more carefully than he usually did, mindful of how much it would hurt to be wrong in this. "...that I 'might not be interested'? How could you have not seen it? "

He was ignoring her attempts to mother him – and though it _could_ be some remaining confusion due to the cold-induced stupor, far more likely it was just Logan Cale. It sounded just like him, to refuse to acknowledge her fussing. She relaxed a little, chuckling. "How can _you_ be so single-minded?" she teased, "I probably blocked it out – just as you're blocking out the fact right now that you need to get something hot in your system..."

She suddenly knew he was actually considering something hot that had nothing to do with tea or coffee, given the wry look and megawatt beam she saw in return ... and was delighted to see it.

"Oh, you really do need to get some rest..." she laughed, shaking her head at his silent reaction. "And I need to remember I'm the medic here – and there's a good chance you're still under the influence. You might not remember any of this by tomorrow..."

His smile softened in affection. "Max, if I don't remember ... you'll tell me, won't you?" At her widening smile, as she moved again to get up, he dared, "Don't go. Stay. Stay here, like this, please..." When she turned back to look at him in question, he paused, then shrugged, "if I _am_ dreaming, I'd rather you spend the time here with me than in the kitchen."

Her chuckle was soft as she assured him, "this isn't a dream..."

But he looked away, his knowing expression wry as he colored a little and murmured, "That's what you _always_ say..."

Max's smile lit the room at the implication. "I _mean_ it this time," she laughed. She shifted to her feet, again moving to leave and again pulling along the blanket to wrap around her ... and, again, he stopped her.

"Max..." His smile quieted a little now, and he pulled his hand from under the blankets to reach toward her. She curled back onto the bed, taking his hand as she sat close at his side. In his eyes now she could see the lingering insecurities, the desire he had for just this intimacy, as he admitted, "I'm afraid that, once you leave ... I might not have the courage to ask you back again."

Her heart melted at the sound of him, the look in his eyes ... His confessions made her strong now, and she leaned closer to kiss him again, gently, on his lips... his forehead... and leaned back to speak. "I boiled some water not that long ago, and it will only be a minute to get it hot again. Just two minutes, and the tea – and I – will be back and I promise ... you won't have to ask..." She eased back, not dropping her gaze from his, sliding out from the blanket as she tucked it back around him, this time reaching toward the floor to retrieve one of the towels she'd dropped there in her haste to get Logan in bed after trying to dry him. Gracefully coming to her feet while wrapping the towel around her, she promised, "two minutes – maybe less." She took a few steps toward the hall and with a thought, turned. "Any preference?' At his look of confusion, she added, "the tea?"

"Oh – no. No; you pick..."

"'kay," she smiled, after only another couple steps she turned again, glancing back toward the still-dazed man and couldn't resist a teasing, " don't go anywhere."

"...or you'll kick my ass?"

The beam in return warmed his soul. "That will just be the start..."

VIII.

It hadn't even been the full two minutes, but when Max came back, Logan's eyes were closed, his breathing deep and slow, as it was when he came close to nodding off. Yet as she came close to sit on the bed beside him, he roused to open his eyes drowsily and smiled. "I could get used to this," he said, softly.

She grinned for him and came to his side, again lifting the blankets to slide in along his not- so- chilly form while balancing the steaming mug. Eyes twinkling, she wiggled a little and pulled the towel away, raising a pleased blush on her patient's cheeks. She snuggled in and shimmied her arm under his head and pillows to prop him up a little more, bringing the mug close.

"...I could get _very_ used to this," he allowed, another small blush confessing his feelings. He lay back and breathed in the crisp scent of the mint tea Max had brought for him, tasted its mild bite, and wondered if he should have expressed a preference while he could. _No matter what else happens_, he marveled drowsily to himself, _I will never again be able to have mint tea without feeling Max's naked body in my arms..._

**XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO**_**  
**_

_**...and now...?**_


	3. Chapter 3

**_Disclaimer:_** Please see Chapter 1.

_**A/N: **Please see the notes in Chapter 1 regarding the challenges that got this started. Thanks to anyone who has read, double thanks for those of you who found this during FFN's unfortunate illness and thoughtfully reviewed. Let's all keep our fingers crossed that FFN doesn't get sick again any time soon – it's hell on all of us!_

_**SPECIAL THANKS** to Revanche and to Coach, for their time spent with this chapter in editing, nudging, poking, prodding and editing again. All remaining errors and blunders are my doing, not theirs._

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

_**Winter's Chill**_

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

IX.

Over the past several hours, Logan Cale had gone from slowly freezing himself into a stupor, to being hauled unconscious into his not-quite-warm-enough bed, to be being nursed back to near-temperature by a very warm, very soft Max, to lying back against his pillows as he was now, Max again all but nude and wrapped along his body, cuddled into his arm which now circled her in, close. Max was allowing him to stroke her back and shoulder, and he gently drew his fingertips across her soft skin, savoring the feel of her without daring to let his mind wander any further than that. He was still unconvinced that this was all real, but he'd stopped fighting his all-too-sober sanity and just enjoyed the moment, without letting all his doubts and skepticism end this private fantasy apparently conjured by being frozen. _If this is how it goes_, he indulged himself, _I might have to chill myself down a lot more often..._ He even nuzzled Max a couple times but once she sensed his kissing deepen, taking him over, she gently pushed him back to chide him that there would be plenty of time for that later, but that he was still recuperating and hadn't had Sam's blessing for anything that ... vigorous ... yet. She seemed surprised at his delight with her stopping him, but didn't ask about it, which was a relief: _how can I tell her what her stopping me means? _She had never, not once, stopped his advances when he was dreaming...

So he lay back, not fighting the lull of his surroundings or the aftermath of his adventures. He'd slowly begun remembering: the afternoon's drive... the meeting with his "informant" that had been largely a waste of time... the nasty weather... the poor conditions that he fought on the way back...

"How'd you end up in the ditch, anyway? Do you remember?" Max was curious, naturally, but now asked not only to hear how he'd ended up in this condition, but to see if his thoughts were organized, his speech clearer, his memory intact – all things Sam would probably want to know when he called. She'd probed with gentle questions, her voice soothing but compelling his replies. From his answers so far, Logan seemed sleepy, still, but largely unscathed–he seemed to remember most of his day, and was apparently unfazed by events. More and more she was sure he'd escaped without any lasting effects, allowing her to relax as well, finding herself looking forward to what came next, now that they'd made such a major leap forward, landing as they had, here in his bed...

He lay back against the pillows, eyes closed tiredly, but he laughed a soft, rueful laugh as he thought of his answer. "A couple wolves... or maybe wild dogs, I couldn't tell... suddenly darted up in front of me on the road and I had to swerve a little to avoid them. If it hadn't been slick right there..."

"You froze off _your_ tail for a couple _dogs'_ tails?" She asked, a little melodramatic exasperation thrown in for effect. It worked, and he chuckled ... but said nothing else. She felt his muscles continue to relax as she lay curled into his side. Testing him once more, she tried, "why didn't you just call?"

"Tried..." he murmured, drowsily. "No signal at that spot. I got out and tried going a little ways down the road each way to see if I could get one..."

"...in the sleet and rain?"

He snorted softly. "No one gave me a vote on the weather or I'd've gone with tropical." She saw his smile of satisfaction with his answer lift even higher at her indignant nudge. He drew a breath, his smile still lingering, to resume, "No signal, though. Maybe the whole system was out..."

He'd be asleep in a few minutes... and Max felt a sudden wave of relief and gratitude that he'd be his old self with only a few more hours rest. "Want the rest of your tea?" she coaxed, lifting his cooling mug. "Just another mouthful or two."

He chuckled again but this time managed to pry open one eye to peer at her, suspiciously. "Did I know about this maternal streak, before?"

She shook her head immediately, grinning. "You're just dreaming again." At the reference, the second eye opened and he looked at her, slightly sheepish, but saw her beam even wider at his reaction. He relaxed further, but raised his hand to take the mug from her and drain the tea, and Max took the cup from him, reaching back to place it on the bedside table. Thinking he might slip off into sleep before long, she said, "You know, if you're hungry, I think it would be okay to have something. I'd wanted to wait 'til Sam called, to see what he had to say about getting you back to normal, but he's in surgery. I spoke to Lilly – she said that he'd just gone in on an emergency, and it looked like it might be another several hours. I didn't want to start forcing soup or food on you if it was too soon – but you probably haven't eaten all day..."

He shrugged, " 's okay. I'm not really hu..." He broke off, a sudden thought gripping him. "What time _is_ it?"

"About seven..." She looked at him, frowning at the abrupt change in him: he was fully awake now, the muscles in his chest and arms now tightening, his jaw tense. Even his voice had shifted, sounding strained. _More like the normal, driven Logan_, she realized – and felt a ripple of sadness at the thought, no matter how true it was. She waited, trying not to show her confusion – and concern – and disappointment...

He nodded, eyes closing once more, but this time in the embarrassment he knew was to come. _Logan, pal, face it: she's physical perfection, and you're not even in one piece anymore. And just wait 'til she learns what's in store in **that** department... _He knew he would always remember these two moments: the first, when he awoke with a nude Max wrapped around him; and this, the second... when he'd drive her away from his bed...

He opened his eyes now, hating the fact that he had probably known this all along, that the sweeter the dream, the more painful it would be when it crashed all around him. Staring down at the comforter thrown over their forms, he said woodenly, "I ... uh... I'd better get up..."

"Oh, no, Logan, you're still recuperating!" Max propped herself up on her elbow, still clueless as to what had done it, but understanding without a doubt that he was retreating – from her? She reasoned, "If it's Eyes Only stuff, I can check the machine ... or your e-mail ... and you can tell me what needs to be done..."

He shook his head, hoping he didn't telegraph the ache he felt inside. "It's not that..."

She tried to muster the same confident, protective demeanor he'd brought out in her brief moments before, as she leaned to kiss his forehead possessively and sat back with an encouraging smile to pronounce, "Then there's nothing that can't wait 'til tomorrow..."

He let his eyes close again, humiliation already making his stomach lurch. With a shaky sigh, he opened them, planted his hands at his sides, and forced himself up to sit. "Yeah, there is..."

Max searched back wildly through the last few minutes to figure out what had gone wrong, what _she_ had done wrong, to cause him to swing so suddenly from contentment to... this, this _Logan-_esque detachment... "Logan, what...?"

He felt her eyes on him, knew without looking up they'd be full of concern, soft and warm. He couldn't bear to think of them once she saw it all, revulsion changing their warmth into disgust. But she'd never let it go without some explanation ... and so he murmured, "For you, Max... and nearly everyone on the planet... it's the call of nature. For me... it's a scheduled program." _And a whole parade of other things you haven't thought of yet... and once you get a good look at the plumbing, you'll think twice about any more 'skin to skin contact'... _

_Of course... _Max realized why he wouldn't make eye contact even after being so intimate, moments before. She should have known that it was somehow connected to the injury that he'd managed, apparently, to have overlooked until now, in the haze of hypothermia. She'd learned long before that, ultimately, it was usually the source of all pissiness or anger or despair Logan felt. And in all of these last moments, she reflected, he'd been far too unperturbed about his being naked in front of her, their kisses and touch had been too easy...

Max watched now as he retreated from her back into his shell, the signs as familiar to her as the first, hated tremors of her own seizures, and it stung that she could not stop his withdrawal. He turned with a grimly determined set to his shoulders, avoiding her eyes as he pulled a blanket toward him to cover his bare lap, self-conscious now, and reached toward his chair. She had no words to offer; nothing at all came to mind as she stared at him, helplessly, knowing that despite whatever her DNA offered her to protect him physically or help him intellectually on an investigation, she was powerless to take away this all consuming shame he bore, so needlessly...

Logan fought a wave of lightheadedness along with his humiliation as he moved though his transfer, knowing she'd seen him do this countless times, but the circumstances making this as painful as if it were the first. She'd brought his chair close, he recognized; of course she was well-practiced in anticipating those needs. He decided he would not ask her to leave, though he would have done anything to avoid her seeing this: his abandonment of her arms because his body could not be trusted to behave on its own ... his quick move to flip back the covers on his side of the bed. He prayed she wouldn't understand this last action, fighting his own wave of disgust at his need to be sure, along with a rush of gratitude that at least he'd not waited too long, and had avoided being completely disgraced in her eyes ...

Rattled at the sharp change in atmosphere, Max couldn't stand by and watch the wall rebuild between them, growing thicker and higher in each moment of silence that passed. "...Logan..." she whispered, urging...

"Don't, Max..." He hadn't meant for his voice to sound so pathetic and battered; he tried to summon what strength he had left. "Just... give me a few minutes..." _There's no place to find dignity when there's no place to hide_, his thoughts taunted, _when she sees it all... _Transfer completed, he worked to force everything else out of his thoughts but his grip on his wheel rims, the tickle of the blanket corner brushing his ribs, the chilly leather on his bare back. _Focus here, and everything else fades away..._

Max watched in unspoken sorrow for him as she saw how his reality battered his pride, undoing everything that had happened in the past hour, and felt clueless as to how to make things right again. Could he ever see this as being as natural as if he'd just had to pop out of bed to pee, just like every other man on the planet? The fact he let it so completely dishearten him made her feel a wave of frustration, even anger, at the forces that had worked in his life to make plumbing such an issue. _Was it really **that** big a deal to pee standing up?_ The more rational part of Max knew full well there was more to Logan's pain at the results of his injury, but at the moment, confounded by her inability to do more, she indulged in making his problems just that simple: _more than half the world's population doesn't pee standing up and **we've** never let it be such a cause for embarrassment..._

He said nothing as he stopped at his large closet and pulled out some clothes; she said nothing as he went on into his bathroom and shut the door behind him. Flopping back down on the bed, Max felt her eyes burn with tears of frustration that she refused to let come, angry for what his injuries did to his head ... and angry for her own silence. Just when the stars had finally aligned to help get them past the armor they'd built around their hearts, real life reminded Logan why his was donned in the first place...

...which in turn reminded Max how ill-prepared she was to convince him it wasn't important to pee standing up...

She shook herself angrily and snapped out of bed, finding one of Logan's t-shirts for herself, and stalked into his front room, oblivious to the clear, black vibrancy of the sky and stars beyond his windows. She paced to get a grip on the emotions which battled to dishearten her, too. _Some soldier_, she chided herself. _You say you always make it up as you go along – so **deal**. This can't be any harder a mission than any others you've had..._ But she had no great ideas, not really. All she could think of at the moment was just to be there and as stubborn as he, just continue to return, to seek his arms, to tell him what she felt and what was important to her...

'_Continue'_ she repeated to herself. _Max, have you ever really told him just exactly how you feel? Today you said more than you ever have, and it was bumbling at best..._

"Actions speak louder than words" she muttered aloud, defensively. "And he couldn't misinterpret those actions, a minute ago..."

_Yeah, that's why he's locked himself in the bathroom, feeling crappy and undesirable, _her wiser inner self goaded.

"He deserves someone who can make him understand..." she whispered aloud, trying on a bit of self-pity for herself, trying out Lydecker's prediction that good soldiers make lousy lovers...

_Then get to work, _her inner bitch demanded,_ because he **deserves**, for once, getting what will make him happy. And from what he's saying – with his 'actions' speaking louder than his words ... he's already chosen..._

And pacing stopped, Max stared down at the floor for the moment. She would, indeed, make it up as she went along, _because that's what I do._ No plan, other than the refusal to let him succumb, and an unreasonable trust that if she kept at him, kept remembering that he'd _dreamed_ of her, they could get past even a bullet to the spine...

A small smile started as she felt the butterflies flicker in her tummy once again, in tentative hope. "Take _that_, Lydecker..." she whispered... And with a glance up to the rare netting of stars blanketing the city, Max turned back toward the bedroom and her mission of the night...

X.

Max waited now, silently, sitting cross-legged on the bed, facing the bathroom door. It wasn't much of a wait before the door opened and Logan came out, now dressed in sweats and a heavy football jersey. Looking up to see her waiting so blatantly for him to emerge, he colored a little, and, without speaking, turned to move toward the door. She spoke, softly, "Hey ... how about coming back to bed?' _Back to where we left off_, her thoughts continued, wondering if she could telegraph her thoughts as an additional lure...

He slowed, almost stopped – but still didn't look at her. "I'm fine, Max; back to normal. No need for it anymore..."

"How about if _I_ need it?" _How about if I don't **want** you 'back to normal'...?_

He stopped fully now, almost physically reeling with his struggle not to believe. He paused in profile to her, weighing her words, still not looking up; weighing his possible responses before shaking his head. Not falling for it, he said softly, sounding defeated, "Yeah, well..." He began moving forward again, his movements stiff with the effort of fighting her invitation. "We both know, as far as _need_ goes..." he'd moved into the hall by now, Max getting up smoothly to trail behind him, "you're not in too bad a shape..."

She bit her lip, refusing to be baited, and followed him to his computer room, watching him mindlessly open his e-mail, scanning recent additions with an expression that convinced her he wasn't really registering them. "I didn't mean my temperature" she offered gently.

Her voice was soft and even, but with a will behind them that made him glance up, finally, in spite of himself, to meet her gaze. He hesitated, then shook his head, looking back to the monitor, the usual stubborn, maddening determination in his eyes, even if sadder than she'd ever seen them. "I have work to do."

"Yes, you do," she returned, still softly, still unwavering, "but nothing that can't wait until tomorrow."

He glanced away from the monitor again, knowing this wouldn't shake her, and drew a long breath. After another moment, he nodded and said quietly, staring at the floor, "You're right." He backed away from the computer to move again, this time toward the kitchen. "I know you're hungry by now; I can get..."

"Logan..." She stepped around in a smooth, quick move and stood before him, blocking his way. "Don't do this..."

He stopped before running into her, but kept his eyes fixed on the floor ahead of him, breathing forced into the pattern of calm Bling had taught him, refusing to succumb. When it became clear she would out-wait him, his curiosity helped strengthen his resolve, and he managed to look up, mask in place. "Do what?'

Even knowing she'd see such a front, the pain he bore touched her, and the edges of her own determination softened a bit. "We were just in there, in your bed, wrapped around each other, very, very naked," her voice was soft, as gentle as her hands had been, stoking his chest. "I think at this point in our ... relationship... we can sit down and be honest about what's going on. It's not work. It's not Eyes Only, it's not Manticore or who needs what..." The words flowed from her, almost without her consideration. "Right now ... it's about your dreams ... and mine. And more skin to skin contact..." She knelt beside him, threading her fingers through his to lift his hand off the wheel rim he held fixedly, coaxing his eyes back to hers. "...maybe you didn't plan to go freeze yourself, but you did, and now here we are. No matter what you say, Logan, it felt _good_ to you, it felt right... " She saw the first wave of defense begin to crumble as his stubborn denial dropped away, leaving a more vulnerable look of anticipated hurt in his expressive eyes. Max swallowed, suddenly emotional upon seeing the depth of his pain, but squeezed his hand a little and urged, "And I think it's time we finally admit the big one..."

He wavered another moment, balance completely thrown by events and easily tumbled in his post- hypothermia haze. Not sure he could find his voice, not sure he wanted to, the promise of hurt so intense, his insistent hope outshouted even that, and he fell right into her trap. "Admit...what?" he dared.

"...that we _are_ 'like that...'"

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

_**...and so...?**_


	4. Chapter 4

**_Disclaimer:_** Please see Chapter 1.

_**A/N:** Continuing the responses to assorted DAR Challenges, as further explained at the end of Chapter 1. Thanks for your continuing interest and encouragement. Added thanks for those who have stopped by to review – now and always, it is appreciated._

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

_**Winter's Chill**_

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Max watched the defeated figure of Logan as he struggled with his demons and her words and the lingering aftereffects of the hypothermia that had threatened him only hours before. Unfair, to press him now, when he wasn't back to his usual self yet? Maybe. But they had bridged the physical gap that had lay between them as she held him close and he, in his frozen haze, had responded – and Max was not going to let it go, not now, not anymore. Propelled by a sudden urgency that they face whatever this was that had grown between them, she had dared to voice the unspeakable and offer the truth to Logan even more directly than it had ever been thrown up to her by Original Cindy: _...I think it's time we finally admit the big one..._

And he'd succumbed; he'd asked; he wouldn't resist her: _Admit...what?_

She'd drawn a breath and looked him in the eye, crossing that final line of no return: _That we **are** 'like that...'_

XI.

The silence between them tore at her, but the anguish she saw in him was even worse. At her words, the compelling green eyes flickered with the pain of the impossible and he whispered, "No, Max..."

Her chest burned. It wasn't what he was supposed to say...

"...we can't be."

Max swallowed as her mind sped ahead, grasping at the smallest hope, refusing to believe his words as she watched him look away. _He said 'can't' ... not 'aren't' ...not 'won't.'_ She forced herself to breathe evenly – to remember her "mission." Shifting now to bring herself face to face with him, in an attempt to bring his eyes back up to meet hers, she found an expression of grief and impossibility there that she knew her words had engendered in him. As Logan slowly looked back up to Max, his eyes begged her to understand, without his having to lay it all out for her, unvarnished and shameful. The torment he bore tore at her, but if there was to be any hope ... and healing ... she knew she had to make him say it all... As gently as she could, trying with all she had to keep her own emotions in check, she asked, "Why not?"

He dropped his eyes again, his defenses powerful, still stronger than her ability to make him see past his perceived limitations. "More reasons than either of us can count," he murmured, his voice sounding almost resentful as he fought to find his way back behind the protective wall so recently torn away from his heart.

"I can count pretty damn high," she insisted, looking back into the suffering eyes, hoping that what he saw in hers was caring and acceptance and ... _Love_. She wanted him to feel the love she knew she felt for him but was at a loss to express, wanted him to feel as safe as he could be, to speak the words he'd dreaded this long ... the words she now craved to hear from him. She hoped he _would_ feel loved... but also hoped, with a sudden hesitation, that she hadn't mistaken his feelings for her. Before pressing any further, she added, "Logan ... if I was wrong ... if you don't want this, don't want to _try _... just tell me, without pulling any punches or any half-assed attempts to 'let me down easy...'"

The abrupt laugh she heard from him was strangled; she had no idea at this point what it meant. "It's not that..." he managed.

Her face burned with shame as her emotions took another abrupt turn. "It's okay, Logan; my god, we're worlds apart and if you don't feel the same way ... it's better to know now." Words out in the air between them now, at least, _had_ to be a little easier; one way or the other it was on the table finally, even if it meant that his dreams were nothing, and that she'd merely fooled herself into thinking that there might be something there between them...

_...so why was she suddenly shivering...?_

"Max, you _are_ my world..." She looked up at his words, surprised, and saw the hopelessness he felt even amid his admission. "How could you not know that?"

She found she could breathe again. "So then ... we can deal," she tried. At his expression of despondency, unsure why it remained and even more at a loss to know how to make it disappear, she urged, "it's where we start, Logan..."

He laughed bitterly, shaking his head. "Love conquers all? I used to think that. I _used _to believe it. I can't tell you how much I _wanted_ to believe..."

She'd heard cynicism from him before but not like this; it was more akin to the despair that would have driven him to take his own life, had the fates and Mrs. Moreno not intervened. Max shuddered again to see it; realizing that it still lay within him, under the surface, this surrender to defeat ... and feeling a thread of panic that she might be closer to losing him than she'd imagined, the soldier in her took charge for a full, frontal assault as the woman who loved him needed desperately to break through. Was the world killing him slowly with kindness, allowing him to hold on to the belief that he was 'different?' Was _she_, in her own constant reminders that she was different, too? She tried, forcefully, "So did I. And you know what? It's true..."

Despite his skepticism, he was listening, she thought – he _still_ wanted to believe. But he seemed programmed to fight it, and finally shook his head, his words of self-directed anger harsh in her ears. "You said it yourself. We're worlds apart. I'm half again as old as you are, a medical case study of regimens and therapy, all going nowhere. After only a little while of it you'd hate it here, being tied down with all this, with me, with someone more than a decade older and half dead as it is, someone who can't give you what you..."

In an explosion neither saw coming, she was in his lap suddenly, her frantic kisses cutting off his thoughts, stopping his hated words, her lips attacking his in a sudden rush of need and denial and force as the white hot tears coursed down her cheeks in her rage at the Cales, who did this to him, at Manticore, who did this to her, at Bruno Anselmo and the fates and society and simple chronology and everything that made their union anything other than easy and perfect ... she pawed at him fiercely, as if trying to crawl inside of him, as if she could force his understanding that he was valued, _cherished_, that he was more compelling and sexy and desirable and worthy than any man-child her age, than any souped up stud they'd've thrown at her, than any other human on the planet...

Her tears fell across their lips in her frenzied attack; Logan tasted salt-tinged moisture as she ran her tongue along his lips and her mouth begged his response. In stunned silence, he sat breathless as the volcano of energy attacked him, the beginning sobs rattling her breathing, and the woman he'd loved for so long grabbed at him and pulled him close in arms more powerful than even he'd imagined, words attempted and broken, far more feverishly than when she'd interrupted his plans of suicide. His own eyes filled as he began to understand – and even believe – what it might mean... "Max..." He murmured, trying to soothe her, "Shhh..."

"Logan, I can't lose you!" Her words were out before she could consider them, and with the admission she felt herself shiver yet again, feeling emotions she realized she'd never felt before and had no clue how to understand. All this – the tears and panic and desperate need to connect with Logan – percolated in, as did her perception of the moment – in his lap, in his arms, not exactly remembering how she'd gotten there... She felt a ripple of fear that the emotions she felt could so thoroughly overtake her, stronger than her training: her need and love for Logan was as powerful, and took over her reason as completely as did her need for physical satisfaction when she was in heat...

"You won't..." Her panic had apparently gotten through to Logan, too; his self-absorbed torment of moments before had given way to calm, his magical green eyes carrying some concern for her, but mostly his own love and longing for her, not sure that it was wise but argument put aside for the moment. "I'm right here..." As one strong arm circled her form, snuggled up close on his lap, his free hand slipped up to cradle her head, softly tangling in her hair and caressing the nape of her neck, soothingly. "I'm not going anywhere..."

"Logan ... I..." She pulled back just enough to search his eyes for the rest, for his reservations and his assessment of what it meant to have a lab-rat in his lap. What she saw was a soft, wry smile of reassurance.

"Don't try to talk, for now..." He counseled wisely ... selfishly. He'd known those moments of admission, too, made in the heat of emotion, and fleetingly mourned the thought of Max saying things in her tears that she might not mean, later... After several long moments in his arms, she began to relax, and breathed more easily, eyes closing at the feel of his arms around her, the strength she found in him. Sensing that she'd calmed, Logan brushed her temple with his lips before murmuring softly, "You okay?"

She looked back up at him and was surprised to feel her eyes spill over again with tears, the emotional torrent beyond her understanding. She merely nodded, and he reached up to brush away the moist trails on her cheek.

"I'm sorry..." he whispered.

"Why?" She asked immediately, her feelings for him laid as bare as they themselves had been, each in the other's arms, moments before. Max began to believe that this was the more embarrassing. "I'm the one who lost it all; Logan, I don't know what all that was, but..."

He chuckled, a soft, sad sound, and brushed back her hair, speaking as if she hadn't tried to interrupt his thoughts with her own apology. "...for making this so tough on you." He drew his own shaky sigh and the smile remained, although a little haunted. "I'd give you the world if I could, Max..."

"You _have_..." she insisted, irrationally.

He shook his head. "Then I've given you its seedy underbelly." He let his fingers trace along her cheek, tenderly. "Max... I'm not going to patronize you by saying you're too young to know what you want yet. I don't believe that myself. But I do know you've been in hiding so long, or on the run, that you've never been able to kick back and enjoy life, to know what all can be out there for you. I don't want you to make the mistake of tying yourself down here... with me..." he dared, "before you have a chance to see it all, and be sure it's what you want."

She lay against his shoulder for long moments before she finally found her voice. "Maybe not having two thousand dollar watches to wear at cafes or vacations to plan allows a person to see a little more of the world than you can see from a yacht." She shifted in his lap to lift her eyes back to his, lifting her chin in a small show of defiance. "Between my first decade and my second, I've gotten to see quite a bit of the human condition in this world, maybe more of the seedy underbelly than the large life you've seen, but enough of both. Everything I've seen – every act of kindness or cruelty, or of generosity or greed – makes me more certain of what I know – and what I want. And all of it makes me more sure that I don't want to live my life without you this close, just like this."

Logan swallowed, his breathing again forced into a pattern of slow, deep breaths, scrambling for calm. "I suppose..." He finally drawled, slowly, "that counts for something..."

"It counts for a _lot._" Max nudged him, trying a stern look outside, trying for balance within...

He wavered at first, but then allowed himself a grin, to see it, and nodded, his voice gentle. "Ah, see? The other Max is back... I didn't think it would be too long."

She shivered again, this time at the look of love for her, in his eyes ... and dared to ask the simplest, most profound question of all: "What now, Logan?"

He looked at the exquisite woman in his lap, her chocolate eyes shining in love and desire for him, and couldn't help but wonder the same thing, himself. After a moment of looking deep into the warm expression, he leaned to her to kiss her softly, lingering a moment or two, before he leaned back, and drew a deep breath. With a soft smile, lifted an eyebrow, his voice a whisper. "My guardian angel tells me I just fought off hypothermia..." Slowly slipping his hands from around her, he dropped his hands to his wheel rims and began to rock them, just a little, his eyes not leaving hers. "And that I'm in need of recuperation..." The green eyes began to sparkle with a new light of hope and lightness not there for many, many months now... and Logan Cale smiled his most dazzling, sexy smile. "So I think that... for now ... I'll hop back into bed..."

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO


	5. Chapter 5

**_Disclaimer:_** Please see Chapter 1.

_**A/N:** Started in response to a couple DAR Challenges; see end of Chapter 1 for specifics. As always, thanks for reading. Reviews still craved; they help me to know whether or not this should continue or it needs to be wrapped up. I still haven't figured out how to read minds through this thing! _

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

_**Winter's Chill**_

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

XII.

Logan lay back against the pillows once again, this time wearing not only his warm, soft jersey and sweats, but a warm, sated smile as he watched Max, his head canted whimsically to one side and his eyes warm for her. She was still gowned in one of his t-shirts and he dared to imagine that she was infusing it with her sweet scent even now. She knelt on the bed, apart from him and telephone at her ear, her dark eyes watching his as she described Logan's symptoms and recovery to his neurosurgeon. "I think he was completely out for a while, maybe for thirty minutes in the car. He finally awoke on his own about an hour after we got back..." She listened again dutifully, trusting that Logan was mending and would be as good as new soon, but taking very seriously her role at the moment as Sam's eyes and ears to his thawing patient. "Mmm-hmmm. Groggy; but after he really woke up he was more sleepy than groggy. His speech was clearer, and he sounded like he remembered everything. He sounds pretty normal now, but is still dragging a bit." Again she paused, listening. Her eyes flicking slightly, she nodded, "Yep, he got up about a half an hour ago..." Her gaze never left the patient, and a small smile began to grow for him as he continued to look steadily, appreciatively, into her eyes. She reached over and traced his fingers affectionately; he turned his hand and threaded his fingers through hers. Her smile deepened. "He even got dressed then, and went out to check his mail and messages before I convinced him just to get back into bed."

Logan watched his angel silently, letting her do this, letting her fuss over his recovery and tend to him, to speak to Sam and oversee his "treatment." She had, after all, found him and brought him home and thawed him out, and that in itself should have been enough to allow it. But then an amazing, stunning thing had happened – she had leapt into his lap and had kissed him with a fear and a passion that had smacked him silly and let him start to believe that she might just have something with this "we _are_ like that" argument...

"Oh ... okay; let me check..." From her kneeling position, Max slipped sideways onto her hip, propping the phone up on her shoulder, and turned his hand in hers. Peering intently at his hand as she worked, she squeezed his thumbnail with gentle firmness for a moment, then released it, watching in brief silence before smiling in satisfaction. "Let me see your other hand, Logan," she directed, speaking into the phone as she took his proffered right hand and repeated the action. "The left refilled right away ... right did, too." She released his hand and smiled at him, sweetly, and pivoted on her knees toward the end of the bed. Logan watched with interest as Max quickly pulled the neatly tucked corners of the bedclothes loose, and repeated the action on his big toes. "Both toes refill almost as quickly." Phone still held between her ear and shoulder, she slipped gracefully to her feet and started to tuck the covers back around him when she paused and, clearly, something occurring to her, she stopped and crossed to his chest of drawers, opening two drawers before fishing into the third. With a grin of success, she held up a rolled pair of wool socks and walked back to stand at the end of the bed, still watching Logan, her large, luminous eyes never leaving him. "Okay. Okay; I'll tell him. What about eating, or...? Oh, alright." She smiled again, the prognosis apparently good. "Thanks, Dr. Carr." She listened once more, and her face broke into a beam. "I'll tell him, thank you." She punched the off button and tossed the phone onto the bed, uncovering his feet again. "Dr. Carr thinks you just might pull through," she teased.

"That's convenient – I paid six months ahead on my cable service." He watched her unrolling his socks, her intent clear. Embarrassment poked him despite the recent moments with her, and he frowned slightly to see her sit so comfortably at the edge of the bed, shaking out the first sock and turning toward his unmoving foot. "Max..." he began.

She stopped, looking back up to him calmly, not speaking, the bright, clear eyes awaiting his words.

He didn't want to sound childish or whiny, but he didn't think he wanted to see her doing this. Propping himself up on his elbows, and hoping for a soft delivery, he pointed out, "I _can_ put on my own socks..."

"Of course you can," she rolled her eyes. "I see you almost every day, and you have socks on every time _I'm_ here, even when Bling is out of town." At his sheepish grin and small blush, she saw her words had the desired effect, and he relaxed a little. "But you're still recovering," she continued, "and I'm down here and need to tuck in the blankets anyway, and Sam wanted socks on you. So just this once..?"

She knew her smile was endearing, Logan could see, and her face was alight with an expression that could mean only that she knew she'd won – but she waited until he agreed to her plan before imposing her socks on his feet. And that simple, understanding act of waiting for his approval, even if grudging, drew a slow smile as he leaned back down against the pillows, as he'd been before. "Maybe just this once..." he agreed. He watched, touched at her care, while she rolled the sock up as if she'd been doing this for ages, fixing it so that she could just roll the sock down over his unhelpful foot. Too curious _not_ to ask, he tried, with soft self-consciousness, "How did you know to do that?"

"What, this?" She looked surprised that he treated it as if it were some sort of professional technique.

"Well, yeah. Rolling them like that." He watched as she repeated the action, slipping the wool sock onto his unfeeling foot without so much as a lost moment. "It's not like I'm helping much."

But she was grinning. "Original Cindy saw me once trying get a pair of hose on and she practically went into shock. She sat me down right then and gave me a lesson. Maybe different purposes, but I figured the technique ought to work just as well here." She pivoted back up to her feet, carefully tucked the sheet and blankets in as they'd been, and straightened, looking back at him with another sudden moment of uncertainty, the call and her task now accomplished, her emotional outburst of not an hour before still rattling her in its unexpected, total dominion of her actions...

Understanding the look, he raised his hand to invite her back. "Aren't you cold out there?"

And with a silent, happy beam, Max scrambled back up across the covers to his side and slipped in alongside his masculine form, nestling into the arm he held out, waiting for her, as with his other hand he lifted the blankets back over them both to tuck them in, protectively...

"Seems to me you're the expert in 'cold' these days." The laugh Logan heard from Max sounded for all the world like a girlish giggle. "If you say I am, maybe I need you to warm _me_ up."

"Glad to." He grinned, his arm bringing her a shade closer in to his side. "And since tomorrow's Sunday, you don't have to leave til Monday, do you? It may take about that long..."

She beamed and snuggled into his arm. "Works for me – except I'm without transportation til I run back out there and get my baby. You can wait right here and warm me up again when I get back..." she suggested, coyly.

"Oh, Max, your bike..." In his frost-induced haze and the emotional upheaval that followed, he hadn't thought about the fact that Max would have come out on her bike and have had to leave it behind. "Look; I can drive you out; now, if you want. You don't want to leave it out there..."

"It's fine, Logan," she assured him, her voice carrying the absolute sincerity of her words. "I pulled it back into the bushes off the road before we left. It was practically dark when I got there, and it was so deserted, it would have been fine right out in the open..."

"Max..." He smiled sadly, in apology. "Your bike, though..."

"Between you and the bike? You win, hands down."

"Really?"

She looked back up at the shining green eyes, not sure if he wasn't at some level asking her that as a serious question. No doubt he was pleased that he took precedence, and she wondered fleetingly that someone with all his advantages, growing up, could be so insecure about his importance to her. She chose to treat it as if he were joking, and let a wide smile cover her momentary sadness for him. "Really." She burrowed into his arm, happily. "You're not going anywhere tonight, Logan Cale. I'll find someone tomorrow who can run me out there and if there's no one else around with the gas for it ... we can go get it. Okay?"

"Okay." He smiled slowly.

"Good. Now get back to work warming me up."

As Logan shifted a bit to wrap both of his arms around Max's exquisite form, the sound of her contented sigh as she cuddled into him made his smile move up a little higher, and he shifted to kiss her brow, resting near his cheek. His own contentment came in waves, as hers did, apparently: he was too much the pessimist, too long carrying the baggage of past hurts to simply trust his good fortune at face value. But he found he could let go, in small spurts, and believe that he was truly alive and awake, that this wasn't a dream or some unexpected reward in the next life...

Whatever came next was worth _this_, this moment, this realization of his wildest imagination. Max was not only cradled close in his arms but seeking _him_, wanting _him _... would she _still_ want him when he thawed out completely, and he had to confess to her the nitty-gritty of what was left to him that worked, and what was lost to him forever?

...but even that now-entrenched, self-deprecating thought was harder to hold, no matter how stubborn he might be, given another new twist to his evening: just what was he to make of the fact that the longer she lay there in his arms, responding to his touch and his lips, the stronger his physical desire and the craving he felt for her, which more and more was starting to feel like the sort he felt, _before_ his injury?

Breaking off his kiss to draw a deep breath and get a grip on things before Max knew what was going on in his head, he heard Bling's words spring unbidden back into his thoughts, from months before. "You're going to hear a lot of the guys say that the primary sexual organ is the mind," he'd counseled, sage as always. "You give yourself a chance, you may find that you're in agreement with them."

_Damn it, Bling..._ he thought with a chuckle. Time after time, he'd found that Bling was right about things. About _every_thing. But when Bling had tried to have the "Talk" with him three months after his injury, and he was being his usual mulish self, it was something that Bling had offered almost as an afterthought. He'd slipped it in amid the other knowledge he was imparting that had taken most of Logan's attention – namely, that while everyone was different and even injuries like his were in many ways unpredictable, it just was not the least bit likely that with a spinal cord severed around T8, he was going to just bounce back and start banging the gong as he did in the Day. What little he'd registered at the time about the mind being a sexual organ of any sort – let alone "primary" – was taken with a great deal of skepticism and doubt.

...now he wasn't so sure...

"What's so funny?" Max looked up to him with eyes large and sweet, sparkling for him. His "mind" threw him yet another left hook and he wanted to wrap himself around her, taste her skin and let her soft hands find places he'd forgotten he had...

_Damn! Was the man **ever** wrong?_

"Not funny, so much, as ... what, overwhelming?" Logan reached out to trace her features, amazed yet again that he was actually caressing the cheekbones he'd admired from the distance he'd erected between them, that her body now pressed close to his, intimate, the promise of much more to come. "Max, I thought about this, for as long as I've known you ... but I really never believed it would happen." His eyebrows lifted, the unexpected events still leaving him at a loss to know what was ahead. "I'd thought of too many reasons it wouldn't ... or shouldn't."

Her brow clouded slightly. She knew it was what he'd been trying to say before she cut off his protests; she wasn't so naive as to think that his concerns would evaporate like magic with her kiss. But she didn't want to hear it, didn't want to hear his words confirming how much he hated himself and his life. "Logan, just for tonight..." she urged, softly, "let's pretend there is nothing but us, and how this feels – no gunshot wounds or wealthy family, no Manticore or age difference ... no world to save or packages to deliver... just _us_, Logan ... and if tomorrow you want to talk about why you could think we'd be better off alone than just dealing with those things, we'll talk..." her eyes glittered with the welling of new moisture, the emotions still so powerful here in his arms. "But tonight, Logan ... can we please just pretend that we're all that matters?"

The pain in her eyes and the poignancy in her voice pulled in his chest, and in aching regret for causing them, he brushed her cheek tenderly. "Of course, Max... I'm sorry..." he leaned his forehead onto hers, hating how he made things worse for her just as he was reveling in his own hope, and drew his hand around to stroke her hair gently. "I don't have to pretend all that much ... you matter more than anything in my life, you know that, don't you?"

She pulled back to look at him, with his words; she really _didn't_ want to give him any chance to dwell on the ugly or seamy or unpleasant realities in their lives, not when they lay so warm and close in his bed ... but she wanted to believe these words more than anything, and needed to see the truth she hoped she'd find in his eyes as he said them. "There's a lot of competition," she temporized. Her joke was more truth, she feared, than she wanted to hear...

"Nothing in serious contention." He assured her immediately, and eyes sad, he nonetheless smiled a haunted, aching smile and asked, "What part of 'Max, I love you' didn't you understand?"

She blinked in surprise, and an unbelieving, tentative smile played her lips. "The part where... you actually _said_ it?"

His own eyes seemed unnaturally bright as his smile softened a little, pleased to see her response. "I just hadn't exactly managed to get that far, yet. But we've got 'til Monday." Her laugh and look of devotion for him suddenly made his throat tighten in emotion, and he knew he never wanted to leave his bed or this moment. When she shifted then to pull up across his chest, kissing him more fully and passionately, his ability to think left him all together...

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO


	6. Chapter 6

**_Disclaimer:_** _Please see Chapter 1._

_**A/N:** Chapter 1 at its start and finish explains the challenges that instigated this story. It's quickly degenerated to "nekkid Logan for nekkid Logan's sake." So far, I haven't really found a down side..._

_A bit shorter this time, and a few more clothes, but ..._

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

_**Winter's Chill**_

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

XIII.

He'd stopped thinking and just _was_... his fingertips tingled where they traced Max's skin, his lips sparked with electricity every time she moved and nibbled and tasted his mouth with hers... his pulse raced and his chest burned and in his belly, he craved her with every neuron left to him firing wildly...

"Logan!" She gasped, pushing up a few inches, and he registered she was panting, too, her own pulse pounding. "Sam wants you resting..."

"Sam's insane..." he breathed. "He doesn't know that you're here, like this..." He pushed up off the pillow to seek her lips again, reaching up to meet her mouth as she responded again, eagerly, her kiss long and sweet...

...before she moaned a little, to pull back again, this time more slowly and, clearly, regretfully. "Logan..." she chewed her lip. "...I can't do this to you... if you blow up or implode or burn out, because I wasn't a good medic..."

As much as he hated to stop, her sweetly teasing words – and the ache with which she spoke them – made him laugh in a haze of disbelief that it could all really be happening. A warm, soft, squirming Max had just kissed him with more passion and desire than he'd ever dared allow in his dreams – even in secret he hadn't believed he was _that_ worthy. He thought he might just burst, right there and then...

"I'm sorry..." She stroked his face gently, and he gently caught her hand in his, bringing her palm to his lips to kiss it as he had before. _He has to know how that made me feel_, she thought absently. _Did he see what it did to me before? _"If Sam hadn't said..."

"Don't be sorry, Max, not for making me feel so... incredible..." he smiled, hopeless in her spell over him.

"Logan... I want this... I want you." She melted into his arms, nuzzling into his chest. "I hate Sam right now."

He drew her close, drunk with the idea that she could have such feelings for _him_ – Max, in all her beauty and intelligence and superior genetics – wanted _him_. And he wanted her, more than he could put into coherent thought. But for now, he was under Sam's orders... and above all, wanted to make Max happy...

He managed to find his voice. "You didn't freeze – only I did," he urged. "Max, even if Sam won't let _me_ do more tonight – there's no reason for you to stop..." _Maybe a convenient way to get used to how things might be, with them... _And as much as he wanted her happiness, as much as he meant his words ... he hated the thought that he might be right...

"It wouldn't be the same." Max met his look, unafraid and undaunted. "I want to wait 'til we can do this together."

He wavered, stroking her cheek as he tried a smile, even as he felt the pain of his admissions. "There may not be much more than this, Max. I won't be able to do much..."

She didn't waver once. "I don't want to worry about what you _can't_ do, Logan..." Her eyes carried her strength and her faith in him. "I want us to worry about all that you _can..._"

XIV.

The room was dark; the blankets warm... the voices soft and low. In the bed, a couple wrapped around each other in tenderness and care... one of them nursing the other back to his old self, the other instilling trust and faith in her that she was now grounded, as safe and comforted as she could hope to be in this world... And to their mutual amusement, they had both 'just popped out of bed to pee, just like every other human on the planet,' one time each...

Logan sighed in sleepy contentment, brushing a stray lock from her cheek. "Max, I really have imagined this ... dreamed it, when I was sleeping ... fantasized about it, when I should have been working ... and every time, I tried so hard to make it special... I wanted it to be perfect, for you..."

"This feels pretty perfect to me..." Her words were muffled as she burrowed in to his chest.

He snorted softly, a smile of appreciation appearing across his features, but he wasn't having it. "No, it's ... it's..." He relented, his rich chuckle vibrating sensuously in her chest. "Well, okay, it's _perfect_... but not the perfect I would have made for you, if this didn't just ..._happen_... because of my freezing myself out there..."

"For which I am very grateful." She lifted her face toward his with her words, and at his quick look at her, coupled with a smirk and a raised eyebrow, she quickly added, "not that I'm happy that you almost chilled yourself permanently, going off on a wild goose chase..."

"The informant wasn't a wild goose..."

"...or whatever it was to get you so close to ice cube status, but if you _had_ to go do something like that anyway, " her smile softened again, "this was fairly quick and to the point ... as far as breaking the ice goes." She suddenly grinned broadly and added, "or maybe 'breaking the ice' wasn't the best choice of words, given your recent adventures..."

He rolled his eyes, his sigh long suffering, but at the same time he brought his hand up to her cheek and curled up off the pillow to brush her lips with a kiss. Dropping back against the pillow, and looking at her for a few quiet moments, he returned to his earlier thoughts. "...as perfect as this may be, " he began again, his soothing voice carrying some regret that he hadn't had the chance to offer her _true_ perfection, "I wanted to make it a night you'd remember ... " his voice began to soften as he spoke, taking on a dream-like quality, hushed and compelling. "If we'd done things the normal way ... and eased into things with the usual sort of progression..." the twinkle in his eyes let her know that he actually appreciated the fact that they'd gotten to this point suddenly too, without time for all the gnashing of teeth in which he'd've felt duty bound to engage, otherwise. As things had played out, he might just be a bit braver, and more ready to explore what might lie ahead for them, than he would have been had they gone through the normal rituals. But still... she heard a soft, yearning regret that he hadn't given her the moon and the stars – and loved him all the more for his generous spirit. "I would have asked if you'd ever had a chance to just stay in bed for twenty four hours, to... just ... _enjoy_ this..."

"And I would have said I hadn't..." she encouraged.

"Ah, well, then, I would have planned such a perfect first night, for you..." His voice was a murmur; he leaned in slightly to kiss her nose and as he pulled back to drink her in, his eyes held such love and tenderness for her, she felt herself shiver yet again... "I would have had everything ready, to make this all perfect. I would have found just the right music, playing in the background... and I'd have had candles – lots of candles – and would've had them all over the bedroom, and around the tub ... all over the apartment. You'd have gotten here and I would've had all the lights off..."

"The computer, too?" She looked up, winsomely, her eyes shining like a child's, swept up in his images.

He chuckled, offering a rueful smile of admission. "The computer, too." He paused, then continued to weave his evening for her. "You'd come looking for me and I'd be back here, waiting... I'd have the whirlpool filling..."

"And bubbles..?" She whispered hopefully.

"Of course, bubbles... and champagne... and candlelight..." He paused, almost succumbing to his own fantasies himself, shifting again to kiss her, gently, sweetly...

...until after a moment Max pulled back a little... and at the glitter of concern in his eyes that she broke the kiss, she urged, her smile all anticipation, "and then what, Logan?"

Understanding, he chuckled, and, nuzzling her nose a bit with his, continued, "and with the champagne there would be strawberries... _chocolate-covered_ strawberries," he corrected. "And I would undress you, piece by piece... so you could get in the tub..."

"Who's going to undress you?" She asked, breathlessly.

"Isn't this supposed to be a night that's made perfect, for _you_?" he watched the brown eyes imagine the scene, swept up in the magic he'd spun for her, his own smile conveying his devotion. "The whirlpool was for _you_..."

"It wouldn't be perfect if you didn't get in with me..." she dared to join the fantasy. "So you'll have to let me undress you, too..."

His smile was a pleased one. "If it would make you happy..." he agreed. "We undress each other, then... and get in the tub..."

"And you feed me chocolate-covered strawberries..." she closed her eyes in ecstacy, imagining...

"And champagne..."

"And champagne..." she agreed.

"...and with the bubbles, there's scented oil for the water... and when you've had enough strawberries, you can lay back and let the whirlpool do its work... and I'll have new soaps for you, your favorites..."

"And for you...?"

"And for me, too," he promised, his voice low.

Opening her eyes slowly, she looked into Logan's, shining in such hope and care for her, any fear or self-doubt she still felt disappeared, and she knew she had found a home in his heart. "Logan ..." she breathed, "I don't ever want to leave the tub or the strawberries or champagne ... or you..."

The longing in her eyes and voice made his chest burn with his love for her, and he fought the sudden prickle of tears at his eyes. "You don't have to..." he promised. "Stay with me, Max; stay here, with me..."

_...more nakedness to come..._


	7. Chapter 7

**_Disclaimers:_** _Please see Chapter 1._

_**A/N:** The Challenge responses continue..._

_**Rated**** ASW** for Admitted, Shameless Wallowing... (Oh, what the heck. Is it pandering if it's self-directed?) _

_**Interesting statistic:** Last weekend, one chapter was posted here, and one in the less-nekkid **CJ**. So far, nekkidity is the chapter with a substantial lead in both reviews and hits. I think I see the proclivities of this crowd..._

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

_**Winter's Chill**_

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

XV.

Logan slowly resurfaced from his sated, restorative sleep, a sense of well-being and comfort blanketing him before he even remembered how or why. Lying on his stomach, the soft, warm form in his arms below him yielding gently to his embrace, he drew a deep, contented breath and nuzzled his cheek against the velvety smoothness under his stubble. "Max..." he murmured, happily .. and tenderly, drew even closer to the form in his arms...

...to find himself in a loving embrace with his pillow...

His eyes flew open, and in desperate denial, he looked across the rumpled bedclothes ... along the empty bed ... around the silent room.

Nothing.

No sign of Max; no sign she'd ever been there. The light of early morning streamed through the partially opened blinds, and the room was still and empty...

He fell back onto the pillow, devastated. _Not again... damn it, not again!_ Wasn't it bad enough that he'd been shot, that he'd been cut in half, left unable to compete for her, unable to offer her more than food and chess? Why did his too-creative mind have to taunt him with cruel fantasies of Max wanting him... Max squirming with desire for him and covering him with kisses... Max looking at him with more love in her eyes than he'd ever seen in a woman's eyes, for any man...

Tears burned against his eyelids and throat.

He couldn't take it any more.

He couldn't bear one more minute of having her near, having to pretend he didn't crave her. Having her there during the day almost guaranteed she would haunt his dreams at night. And this time... they had been stronger than ever; the dreams had gotten increasingly insistent and this time he'd actually felt the warmth of her skin, smelled her shampoo... He stifled a gasped sob of frustration, wondering if Sam would finally relent and give him the sleeping pills that would allow dreamless sleep ... wondering if he ought to stop feeding her and just write her off the Informant Net, no matter the cost to the Cause... or to him ... wondering if there were any way he could even see her again without losing his mind... daring to wonder about the other "sleep" that sleeping pills could afford...

With supreme effort, he pushed himself up, chest hovering over the lonely pillows, the knot in his stomach familiar but this morning, more painful and bitter than ever before. Leaning on his straightened arms, head hanging in grief, he wasn't sure if he could even find the energy to get out of bed one more day... "Max..." he whispered, his heart breaking... and he vowed that he would find a way to sever their ties, maybe even find a way to convince her to leave Seattle, for her own safety... for the work that lay ahead, needing him... for his sanity...

...and so even when the door to his bedroom was opening, he missed its movement... and didn't see the face peeking in...

XVI.

"Oh, no, no, no..." A very feminine voice, buoyant and animated, full of fun and missed surprise and flirtation sounded from the doorway, rueful and laughing, all at once interrupting his dark thoughts. "Logan," she bubbled, "Logan; I'm sorry..." Max scurried on silent feet across the room in a hunched, comic creep to the bed, to his side, and crouched low to peer up at him, a twinkling, apologetic grin on her face. "I was going to get back before you woke up so you'd never know I was gone."

In stunned surprise, he stared dumbly at the beaming face of Max as she knelt by his bed. He opened his mouth once, closed it. For once... _for once_... the dreams had been ... _real?_ He pivoted to lean on one arm, sitting back on one hip, staring at her, afraid to speak and break the spell...

"Logan; what?" She giggled, rather unlike the Max of twenty four hours earlier. "You're not still frozen, are you?"

Dazed, he shook his head no, slowly allowing trust to take hold, in the light of day, relief and elation flooding his being. "I'm fine," he gasped, his surprise still clear.

"Then just close your eyes and pretend you're still asleep," she directed, wriggling out of her leather jacket and diving under the comforter and onto the blankets beside him in one smooth motion. "As if I never left..." she cooed, nestling into his side and peeking up at him with sparkling, hopeful eyes.

He gulped.

She smelled like fresh, chilly air and the cleanness of newly fallen rain, and her skin glowed with a dewy, rosy light. Tentatively, he lowered himself down slowly, onto his elbow, raised his fingers to her cheek and felt the moist cold of outdoors still clinging to her, still recent. Moving on to trace back a curling, dampened lock of her hair, he tried, "you went out..." He almost winced at how dull-witted he sounded...

Seeming not to notice, she nodded, admitting, "I wanted to find us some strawberries..." Slowly starting to believe which was the dream and which, reality, a smile started to lift across his face – coupled with a rueful chuckle. Max saw the reaction and complained "not you, too..."

He sensed a story, and, smile broadening, he shrugged, encouraging her words, still not too trusting of his own voice. "...too?"

"I went to the market and found Mickey and Carlo setting up, and I asked them if anyone there would have strawberries. They both laughed and told me to come ask you about being 'in season...'"

His eyes twinkled as they swallowed her whole, drunk in his feelings for her, letting his hand cup her cheek, his palm warm now against _her_ chilly skin. "I'm sorry, Max..." he managed, "but it just wouldn't have been as romantic to use winter storage crops like potatoes or onions in my fantasy..."

She pouted a little, prettily, and nudged him, "Mickey came up with something better than _that_..."

His smile grew at her use of such patented feminine flirtation, and played along. "What?" he tried.

"Apples..." she drew the word out, making them sound like an aphrodisiac.

"Apples," he smiled, echoing.

"I got some," she purred. "But to be really good... maybe you'll need to cook them..."

The light he saw in her eyes for him melted his heart, and he smiled a little wider. "I could do that..." he agreed. He probably could have flown for her at that moment, if she'd asked.

"You could?" Again, the little girl sounded in her woman's voice, and Logan wondered if he'd ever known a sweeter moment.

He nodded. "Not really finger food..." he warned.

"Could be." She teased. "Logan..." her tone softened into one more serious. "...you're sure you're feeling alright?" He could see then that she hadn't missed the hell he'd been putting himself though when she'd appeared, and her worry for him now played across her eyes as she looked into his, seeking deeper assurances than his automatic words. In response he leaned down and sweetly, softly, nibbled her lower lip, then kissed her fully, hungrily, his mouth insistent... she responded in kind – and relaxed into believing him... After only another few moments, she broke the kiss and whispered "Logan, we're still dressed..."

"I don't mind," he hummed, lips finding hers again immediately. "I know how to fix _that_..."

Her lips broadened against his as they widened into a smile, and she felt his do the same. Pushing away only a few inches to look at the astounding face she craved, she propositioned him, pointing across the room with a tip of her chin, "then you go do whatever you need to do, 'cos once you're back here under the covers, you're not leaving again 'til dark. I have something to take care of, myself..."

His eyes flickered with only a shade of his recent uncertainty. "You're leaving again?"

"Only the other room," she assured him. "Just a couple minutes..." With her words, and brushing his lips once more with a longing kiss, she lifted herself gracefully up and away from him, rocking back on her knees... Shifting easily to slide over to the bed's edge and the floor, she turned once to give him a sultry look, and with a following grin of pure, childish pleasure, Max left his bedroom again and left Logan's world spinning wildly off its axis...

XVII.

Once jarred from the hypnotic spell she'd woven in the few short minutes she'd been back, Logan scrambled to get in and out of the bathroom in record time, finishing by brushing his teeth and swilling mouthwash, wondering if trying to fit in a shower was lunatic, wondering if hunting for aftershave was as crazy as it would be futile. Nervousness was trying its best to get the better of him, but his hunger for Max and her invitation to his bed were giving even _his_ insecurities a run for their money.

At least he'd grabbed clean boxers, and he dared prepare for his return to bed with only them covering his long, lanky frame. Certain that she'd have beaten him back to bed by now, he opened the bathroom door cautiously, another sudden bout of self-consciousness crossing his thoughts... and what he saw let him forget everything else, for the moment...

She'd lit candles. Max had shut the blinds nearly all the way, dimming the room, and she'd brought in extra candles, so their tiny, bright lights sparkled across the room. As he opened the door, she turned from the last one she had placed on the dresser, across from the bed, and what he saw took his breath away...

Max... his Max, his _angel_, stood facing him as a diaphanous ivory gown floated around her, its low neckline clinging to her olive skin and filled with her soft, rounded form... lace and ribbon were involved; sheer, silky fabric fluttered across her thighs... "Max..." he gulped yet again, vaguely wondering if she could ever cease to surprise him.

At his stunned response, Max took a couple tentative steps closer, clearly self-conscious herself now, too. "Is it...?" She began, and started over. "Is this what you'd like?"

He slowly came over to meet her, reaching a hand to take hers. "You're breathtaking..." he whispered. "But _you're_ 'what I like'... all of you, whatever you're wearing ... whatever you're not..."

The smile she saw in return dazzled as she relaxed back into being herself, back into wanting him and trusting him to want her. "Original Cindy said I _needed_ to do this," she smiled winsomely. "She said I had to have it, for the first time..."

"_Cindy_ said that...?" he asked, unsure. "When? Last night?"

"No," she smiled, again self-consciously. "About six weeks ago. She just brought it home one day; said she saw this coming, she was getting tired of waiting ... and said I'd better have something ready for the Big Night..."

"I _love_ Original Cindy," he breathed, then sobered, looking long into the deep, dark eyes before him. "I love _you_. Max... I love you..." He let his fingers intertwine with hers even closer, and pulled her near, daring to pull her into his lap and his arms, his waiting mouth. "I love you. I think I always have..."

She shivered a little, burrowing into his strong arms. "Logan..." she whispered, her voice catching.

"Shhh..." he soothed, hearing the emotion, wanting to protect her and to let her know that whatever still haunted her, it would all be okay. "You know you don't need to say anything..."

"But I _do_..." she urged, hearing that he'd misunderstood. She drew a deep breath, and admitted, "I used to be so afraid that ... I'd never _feel_... that I _couldn't_; that they'd written it out of me... I never understood all the romances Kendra or Cindy found, how they felt so much, _loved_ so much ... and all they felt, when they were losing someone..." She paused, then breathed her sweet confession in his ear. "And then I met you..." As Max again lifted her face to him, Logan looked into the ageless, intelligent eyes that at the moment he held her, smoldered just for him. "Before, I wondered if I _could_ love someone ... or if I'd know it, when it happened..." her eyes actually filled, in emotion. "You answered all my questions, Logan; I can ... and I do... I love you and have loved you from the start, from that first, insane moment where you held a gun on me and were delighted when you found out that I'd broken in just to steal from you."

His look of wonder dissolved into a slow smile and a laugh, for her words. "How could you have loved me then?" he challenged, wanting to believe it too...

"I loved you because you were a lunatic ... I loved you because of that smile ... I loved you because you were a rich guy dressed like a bum, grinning like a fool 'cos I was there to rob you. I loved you because of your crazy hair. I loved you because of that smile..." She grew braver with every word, braver with his smile for her now, and went on, "and the really whack thing was... _then_ I got to know you. And even the smile and the hair could have disappeared because even more than all those things... I knew I loved the man underneath..." She looked at him, unblinking, her eyes filled with passion and hunger, for him. "I love you, Logan... nothing's ever scared me more... and nothing has ever made me feel so strong. We've got a hell of a lot going against us – people trying to kill you ... people trying to kill me ... your stupid stubborn streak..."

He actually laughed at that, the sound rich and warm...

"...but none of that matters... not now. Not when we love each other..."

_We love each other_, two hearts marveled... _...and this time, it isn't a dream..._

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO


	8. Chapter 8

**_Disclaimers and A/N:_** _Please see Chapter 1 for disclaimers, attribution and information on the Challenges addressed herein._

_**THANKS to all who have read and commented. **My almost-late Christmas gift to all of you who have expressed an interest in this fic: The Deed (or Deeds...?) at last. _

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

_**Winter's Chill**_

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

XVIII.

In the morning hush of the elegant penthouse, two forms entwined; graceful, lithe and feminine folded into lean, sinewy and masculine; fluttering cream ribbons and wispy fabric shifted along skin as hands explored and worshiped and promised the stars ... unsecured, the chair beneath them rocked a little, joining the dance, unnoticed by the couple as they tasted the lips and skin and hands they'd each craved for so long...

Max shifted away from Logan's mouth and trailed her lips down his throat, along his jaw line, and as she found the warm, soft hollow beneath his jaw, along the side, the sound of his breath sucked in quickly, hard, startled her, then made her smile as she heard it followed by a soft moan. _'X' marks the spot... _She moved back over the sensitive place with her tongue, feeling him shiver; she caressed it with her lips and felt him draw a sudden, deep breath. "Max..." he managed...

She pulled away in the next moment, and he opened his eyes to see hers still closed, her mouth open, just a little, pausing, as if to let it all sink in for a few moments ... still reeling from the new sensations of his altered body, of never- before- experienced physical responses from entirely unexpected places, he watched her carefully, reverently, his hands shifting lightly to accommodate her movement, as he looked for a sign of what would make her happy, of how _he_ could make her happy...

She opened her eyes then, and he saw that a question had formed there, one of concern, her eyes looking deep into his for answers more truthful than he might want to give. He felt a small tug of worry, for what she might suddenly be thinking. "Logan..." Her voice was serious, caring. "Is there anything that you shouldn't do? Anything that _I_ shouldn't do, that might hurt you?"

The question that hours before would have humiliated him, especially coming from her, even angered him, was now heard with a more understanding heart, as he heard the love behind the words – the respect in her _asking_ him, not just jumping to conclusions from whatever she'd found on the 'net or heard from Bling, even amid the reminder it brought that this was new territory for them – for _him_. Now able to feel relief, even, that it was such an easy answer, he moved his hand from where he caressed her neck and shoulder, to gently trace back a lock of hair that had fallen across her cheek. "No," he smiled, simply.

"Nothing, that would... compromise your circulation, or blood pressure, or some other things I haven't learned about yet?"

He saw the worry in her eyes, for him, and dared to believe that her fears were not a general belief that he was frail or brittle – but just as she said, that there were unknowns that might need consideration. With a widening smile he shook his head and assured her, "No ... unless you have something in mind a lot more athletic – or extreme – than, say, basketball..."

Logan saw the analogy dawn on her, reminding her that he took a regular, weekly pummeling on the court, and saw her own smile dazzle as her eyes lost their worry, an impish look replacing the concern. "So we're on our own? Anything goes?" Warm and liquid, she shifted easily with her words to sit on her knees, straddling him, and pressed close to steal a sweet, slow kiss...

Moments later he realized she'd let him up for air, her question still lingering playfully, and he shrugged, trying to hide the returning amazement that this was so easy for Max, seducing him, chair and all. "No fouls..." He managed to whisper.

"Not thrown out of the game til I get, what ... four?"

"Five" he rasped.

She beamed. "That gives me a lot of room..." She leaned in again to kiss him warmly, her tender insistence making his breath come more quickly, and his arms circled her again, drawing her close. But after only another couple minutes, Logan felt Max's shoulders roll smoothly, and her hands softly covered his. Without stopping her exploration of his lips with hers, Max lifted his hands from her hips and derriere, where they had dallied, and gently placed them on his wheel rims, guiding them to move toward the bed. At the moment he realized what she was doing, his eyes blinked open to search her face, see her thoughts. She felt his movements and opened her eyes too, smiling at him. With a look that was sweet and a little shy, she explained, "the bed would give us a lot of room, too..."

XIX.

In the morning hush of the elegant penthouse, two forms entwined to begin the dance as old as time, as old as life. These lovers had enemies and barriers making this moment harder to come by but sweeter than most; they had faced dangers unheard of by others, but had advantages others could not imagine. They were as different as life can be, one from the other, but made to be together. It had never been easy; it would never be easy: but it was _them,_ and it – and they – were alive, and full of insecurity and fear and passion for each other...

Their mouths and hands and bodies had burned for more, stoked by the touch of the other so very few moments before, when the reality of the physical world intruded: Logan watched Max move nimbly off his lap into the bed, and was reminded that 'nimble' was lost to him, forever; Max watched as Logan tried his best not to let his cheeks burn with embarrassment at his labored progress into the bed, and was reminded that such basic things still caused him discomfort. But kisses and cuddles _had_ helped temper that reality, and even as Logan made his way toward the center of the bed, he was strengthened by Max's patience, waiting for him in the middle, making no move to assist him in getting there, and was amazed by the moves she _did_ make, her occasional bounce toward him as she waited, to nibble his ear or steal a quick kiss...

Logan settled in against the mountain of pillows in his sumptuous bed and opened his arms to Max, drawing her close as she nestled in quickly. Having begun their dance as tenuously as if adversaries, Max and Logan had moved quickly to being partners, confidantes ... secret desires. Trust was not a problem; each knew the other's most intimate secrets. Each had trusted the other with their life and each had literally saved the other. Now, each of them wrestled desire and fear, yearning and insecurity, as new and fragile as if the past hours hadn't happened, as if the hours together under the covers naked had not shown them what lay ahead, as if the tender, gentle caresses they'd shared with Logan's stories or the sweet, passionate kisses they'd shared moments ago had not eased the way.

Logan let his fingers gently trace Max's cheek, and as she lifted her face toward his for another soft kiss, each felt the weight of the _firsts _there in the bed, with them – the first time they would make love, Logan's first intimacy after being shot ... Each so desperately needed these firsts to be magical, for the other, while feeling the shy fear of being, yet again, a disappointment: for Logan, that even the sensuous, loving ministrations with his hands and mouth that he knew he could offer Max would, ultimately, not be enough, and _he_, not enough; and for Max, that whatever she could do, whatever pleasure she could bring him, would still leave Logan unsatisfied, if his body would no longer let him experience sexual gratification the way he used to, and therefore _she_ would leave him unsatisfied ...

Of course it was Logan who spoke, finally. He believed it was only fair, given that it was his body that would fail them both; he owed her one, last chance to run from what they were about to begin. Pulling away from her lips, he drew a breath and hoped his voice would be steady. "I want to make you happy, Max. If it's not enough, I'll understand..."

At his soft words, Max looked at Logan, her eyes glittering at his sadness. "That's _why_ it's 'enough,' Logan, don't you see? No one ever cared, before, if I was happy ... and I never cared so much if someone else was happy, too. Just this, your arms ... and your _heart_... are enough for me. They _are_..." she insisted as he drew a breath to protest.

He knew she wanted to believe it; hell, he did, too. "You say that now... and maybe for a little while, it would be fine. But after a while, Max..."

"Shouldn't you wait to say all this, until after we try?" She worked to smile for him, her vision swimming only for the briefest moment before the sudden mist in her eyes cleared. "Just you and me, here, like this ... it's all I'd ask," she urged. "Anything more would be extra... Beautiful and wonderful ... but extra, Logan. Like all the things you promised – the bubbles, and the strawberries – beautiful, but only if it's you and me, here, like this..."

The look Max saw in his eyes as he listened was a complex one; sad and relieved, hungry and insecure. The emotions shifted slightly, though, as he spoke the words about which he had no question: "I love you, Max..."

At that moment, all walls in her tumbled, any armor or defense or self-protection she had left toppled as she pushed close, for his lips, for the caresses she craved. "I love you, Logan," she whispered, "and that's all I want, I promise..." She searched the strong face, and made her own confession. "For you, though ... I'd do anything to make love to you in some way that could be as good for you as it's ever been ..." she looked away, not trusting her emotions, letting her lips brush the soft hair on his chest as she admitted, "but I know I can't..."

"Max..." Logan raised a hand to touch her cheek, to raise her chin a little so she would look back at him. "I have never looked forward to making love with anyone as much as I do with you, right now – _whatever_ that means now..." His smile was soft as he began to understand that he really meant his words. "I never really believed this could happen." His smile lit his face, melancholy fading in its warmth.

Max saw it, in his eyes, saw that, as in everything else, they would find their own way, that love between Eyes Only and a Manticore soldier, between a man who'd been injured and a woman who'd been enhanced, was unique and their own, to create. Her own smile growing, Max pulled up closer, snuggling into the broad, warm chest to try, "Maybe the best part of all this _is_ that we make it up as we go along ... we do what feels right, for _us_, no big goals or expectations or rules about what's 'enough,' for either of us..."

"The very best part..." He traced his lips across her brow, starting to relax into his trust for her, for _them._ In another moment, he felt his lips twitch into a small grin as he drew a breath to add, mischievously, "Of course... you may need to help me come up with some explanations for Bling, for all the bruises I'll have on my arms and chest..." His words brought her up to again look to his face; she'd heard the tone of his words and now, at the playful, teasing glint in his eyes, Max narrowed her eyes a little, happy to play along, as she waited for the punch line. Logan chuckled, "I'll be pinching myself, hard, every other minute... just to enjoy the reminder that this really, honestly isn't a dream..."

At the humored, sentimental words... and the growing look of faith and belief in his eyes, Max's smile grew even wider before it was tweaked down to a sexy smirk, just for him, and she eased upward to straddle his hips. Curling back into him, she purred, "If it's no holds barred... nothing off limits... I can think of a lot of ways that are a lot more fun, to remind you it's real..." Nipping at his shoulder, playfully, ribbons teasing his skin, Max raised her eyes back to his as they danced with fire. "..and only about half of them should leave any permanent scars..."

XX.

Original Cindy's negligee was not much longer for the dance. Logan's sensitive hands made their way up under the filmy fabric, along Max's thigh and hips and back; as Max sat back up on her knees, Logan brought his hands around to cup Max's breasts, pausing to gently caress the soft curves there, before moving his hands on around, palming her shoulder blades, finally drawing the fabric along with the movement and on, up over her head, tossing the gown carelessly toward the end of the bed. At that, Max slipped sideways off his form and, with a seamless, smooth movement, lowered his boxers, dropped them off the side of the bed and, with a sudden, private smile for the nude form, again straddled his hips. Logan's hands began their exploration, no longer thinking but letting his desire for her take him over. "God, Max ..." he murmured, "you're so beautiful..." His fingertips found sensitive places and she responded, arching or moaning or diving close for his lips; her hands and mouth began their own work and found places that made him moan, made him shiver and made his kisses stronger, more frenzied, more demanding...

It was as natural as breathing; it was silk; it was all fire and whispers ... it was new and it was ageless; it was tentative and it was unhesitating ... in the universal dance, Max explored Logan's body to find the places alive with sensation and places quick to bring a gasp; Logan did the very same with Max's. They weren't so different, in this: all time was lost, all sense of the world beyond their bed gone as they let hands and mouths probe and delight in finding way to please the other and take pleasure in the act...

Yet again Max moved to straddle his form, but this time, with small gestures and touches, drew him up to sit as she twined her legs around his hips. With a quick lift of her own hips over his, she pulled them close and shuddered, rocking against him in heated passion. Almost immediately Logan felt his insistent craving for her spike up, despite the impossibility; he felt his senses rushing toward a high that had him panting, his mouth seeking her sweet breasts, his hands, her hips, locked in with his... as he let his hands play across her thighs and pelvis, he discovered that at least for the moment, the physiological oddity that allowed him a reflex response to touch responded to hers ... And as Logan's hands came around to cup her derriere, rocking and insistent, he began to believe that even if he could no longer feel it all, some things might still work for him... for her... and the thought let him succumb to the sensations washing over him, new and different than before, but most assuredly welcome...

XXI.

In the now-quiet penthouse, two forms entwined to doze and nibble, to cuddle and nuzzle in sated comfort, a ritual as old as time and as new and remarkable as their lovemaking.

Max nosed again into the soft, light fur of Logan's chest and felt his mouth curve in to a smile as he rested his cheek on her crown, where they each lay on their side, facing each other. With a contented sigh, she pulled their bodies closer with the leg she'd wrapped around his, and pulled gently at the curling hair with her lips. He kissed the curly mop under his chin, idly, and chuckled, "what?" At her murmur of question, he chuckled again and said, "you were going to say something..."

"How..?" She pulled back a little to see his face, and saw his pleased grin. "Nevermind," she rolled her eyes, but pulled up to lean on her elbow, looking into the extraordinary green eyes now uncovered, his glasses on the table beside them. "I was only going to say ... that it will be easy from now on, won't it? All the monsters put to bed? All the questions answered..."

"Not _all_ the questions," he teased, affecting a serious look.

"Well, no, not _all_," she returned the teasing, her tone sultry and provocative for the moment, before continuing, in some seriousness, "but all the tough questions – can I make you happy? Can we find the way to give you back some of all this?"

"...can I make _you_ happy?" he matched her smile and joined in. "And will parts of me work, at least a little while?" His wide grin of relief made his thoughts on events clear.

"And can we make you _really_ happy?" she laughed.

His own laugh rolled across the bed as he let his hand trace lazily along her back. "That too," he agreed. "Max, I've never met anyone else who could mean so much, who could have made me feel..." he trailed, the thought still too close to say easily. "Thank you..."

She leaned in to kiss him, sweetly, no words fitting. When she broke the kiss, she pulled back, and the creamy ivory of the abandoned negligee caught her eye. With a grin, she sat up and reached out to pull the fluttery, silken gown closer, shifting back down onto her elbow, under Logan's slow caress. Admiring the delicate lace, she looked back at the green eyes, catching the candlelight still shimmering behind her. With a small laugh, she said, "I know Original Cindy loves me like a sister – and I think she would get my back, no matter what." Max smiled in a rueful, self-conscious admission. " So I think this means she was worried that I'd need some help, the first time with you..."

Logan's smile was for her words, the shake of his head for how wrong Cindy had been, no matter her good intentions. "You _do_ look amazing in that nightgown ..." Logan's smile was almost wistful in his memory of that first sight of her, "but it's just not the Max I know."

At his words, she asked, as casually as she could manage, "Would you prefer the one in the nightie?"

Her voice was still light and teasing, but Logan saw the tiny flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, and was struck by the thought that Max would worry about being who he wanted her to be. "I prefer the one in my arms..." he pulled up onto his elbow to meet her lips, nuzzle her nose with his. "The one I fell in love with. And whatever makes _her_ feel good."

...and the change he saw in her – the happiness in his acceptance – made him want to protect her from the world. "Really?" she smiled, and it occurred to him that the sweet hopefulness she was willing to show him, the complete absence of the cynical, tough-guy Max, spoke more of the trust she had in him than any words she could say. He began to believe that he was seeing a side of her she'd been afraid to show, probably ever –and he vowed he would protect that side of her and that trust 'til his last breath.

"Really," he promised. "But even better than Cindy's gown..." His affectionate grin pulled up as he admitted his initial reaction. "When I got an eyeful of you in my t-shirt..."

Her smile was one of delight, even as if she was surprised that he could find her so desirable. "That grey t-shirt, last night?" She asked.

He nodded, his eyes twinkling, "That's the one ... and I think it was my favorite... 'til I saw what was underneath them all..." His hand broadened across her back as he leaned up again, seeking her mouth now with renewed desire. His hands were just as gentle as before and his lips, as tender, but Max could feel a new centeredness in him, a confidence that this part of his life was not over ... and she smiled as she let his arms enfold her.

It was as natural as breathing; it was silk; it was all fire and whispers ... it was new and it was ageless; it was tentative and it was unhesitating ... and in the universal dance, Max and Logan again took their places and began the slow, sweet waltz once more...

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO


	9. Chapter 9

**_Disclaimers and A/N:_** _Please see Chapter 1 for Challenges info and other details._

_**THANKS as always** for reading. Reviews and comments – pro, con, in-between– are helpful and the only way I can tell what you think. Lots of hits and few reviews can make a body nervous...  
_

**_And Happy New Year, everyone..._ **

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

_**Winter's Chill**_

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

XXII.

The kitchen work bar was strewn with all manner of ingredients, clutches of vegetables and containers of unknowable Cale concoctions, small tins of dried herbs or the rare sprig of a fresh one. Logan worked his magic with knife and whisk, his eyes mostly on the work before him but a small, insistent smile refusing to disappear...

He heard the water turn off as Max finally finished lingering in the shower. He'd felt a real mix of emotions as she wheedled him to join her: a mean craving to do so, fired by his far- too- active imagination's work on the ideas of soap and water and Max mingling before his eyes – let alone under his hands ... but even stronger was the embarrassment that still threatened to overpower him, the thought of his form brightly lit by bathroom lights, half of him unresponsive to the very same soap and water and Max...

But she'd understood; he told her, quite honestly, that there was nothing more he'd rather do, but he needed to be fortified a bit more under the covers to be ready for it. And she'd been sweet and sexy and so damned reassuring about it all he'd almost tossed her into the shower right then and there...

He reached for another fistful of broccoli and pared it down, dropping the bite sized pieces into a bowl of the mixed vegetables he'd managed to find in his refrigerator, then moved to whisk the dip again and taste, testing whether the herbs had started infusing their flavors into the creamy mix, reaching back for the knife...

As he pulled his finger from his mouth he looked up to see he had an audience: Max had come out from her shower, this time in another of his t-shirts, a black, shorter one – not that he'd chosen a shorter one on purpose, he assured himself – smelling of his soap and shampoo, hair towel dried and gently curling ... padding along in bare feet...

_Damn! That knick hurt worse than the first one had..._

"Butterfingers..." Max laughed, in a sultry voice, and she lifted his injured finger to her lips to kiss it gently, then took the other one, the one that had just been in his mouth, and imitated his 'tasting' action, but in slow... _suggestive_... movements. "Isn't this something _I_ should be doing?"

Breath knocked out of him for a moment, he finally managed to breathe again and, more oxygen to his brain, he saw the twinkling of fun in her eyes. "Seems you're doing plenty, as it is." He sat back to consider the grinning cause of his mishaps, admiringly, and lifted an eyebrow. "You mess with the cook too severely, it will cut down on your meal availability for a while..."

"I'll keep that in mind," she teased again, and this time came closer to the corner of the work table and leaned over a rare uncluttered spot to kiss him, long and sweetly ... he let the knife in his hand drop to the table, quietly, and he leaned into her kiss, raising his hand to palm her jawline, her neck...

Moments passed before she broke the spell, chuckling a little that she was able to have this effect on the one man she actually _wanted_ to respond like this. At the sound of her laughter, his mouth drew up into a rueful smirk. "Max, I'd never have taken you for a tease..." His voice was warm, his own pleasure clear. "At least – not this overt about it." Max wanting to get him aroused again? The thought was intoxicating...

"Just hadn't found the right target ... or, when I did..." she leaned back in, nipping at his lip again, "I wasn't sure the time was right, yet..." She finally pulled away to gauge his reaction, and was comforted by the light she saw in his eyes. "Your mom was right, maybe, that the universe is on schedule?"

"I wouldn't have minded if it had hurried up a little..." He gazed at her, unmoving, the beautiful face and sparkling eyes holding him captive, until she blinked and laughed again.

"C'mon! Chop! Mix!" she directed. "I've gone way too long without sustenance!"

"Whose fault is that?" Max was delighted that Logan was finally able to joke back and maybe admit, even tacitly, that she found him attractive, too, keeping him in bed the whole morning. "You're actually slowing down progress now, in that t-shirt..." He pointed to her lovely form with the knife he'd picked up again, then turned back to start in on a pepper, watching his work, but unable to relax his mouth from its pleased, sated smile...

"You picked it out..."

His grin twitched even a bit higher, but he didn't respond to the bait, instead nodding toward her bare feet on the stone-slab floor. "If your feet are cold, there are plenty of socks in the dresser..." He offered.

"No, I'm good. But what about you – should you put some on? You're the one who just tried to freeze off your toes."

He glanced down at his own feet, pink and healthy and looking none the worse for their chill. "Nah, they're fine. Besides," he finally looked back up at her, eyes merry, "I don't plan on their being out of bed all that much longer."

She grinned in return, but only for a moment, when her face shifted into an attitude of listening, with another, different smirk immediately in its place. "Company's coming," she announced. "Sounds like Bling. Maybe I'd better go hide..."

With a glance to his upended kitchen he called after her disappearing form, "it's not like he won't guess there's a hungry mouth waiting close by, with all this..."

Her head popped back around from the hall to say, "well, I'm not exactly dressed for visitors, am I?" She paused, "you guys have something scheduled?"

"No, I thought he wouldn't be back in town til tomorrow – he's probably just stopping by to remind me to take my vitamins..." Logan smirked.

Her face lit up with a beam of lustful amusement before she disappeared, calling, "Tell him I'll make sure you take plenty..."

...and the sound of Max closing the bedroom door coincided perfectly with the sound of Bling's key in the front door lock, and his disarming the alarm system...

XXIII.

Bling was relieved that the penthouse seemed intact and quiet, but in the circumstances, had not really been too worried about a break-in. Sam's concerned words brought the therapist directly here, and when even Logan's "private" number wasn't answered, he started stewing in earnest. He hadn't seen Max's bike and wondered if she'd really leave Logan in that condition, refusing to start inventing more problems until he took a look around. Coming into the penthouse and hearing familiar sounds from the kitchen, Bling was both relieved and disconcerted to find the "patient" at his work bench, surrounded by food...

"Logan..." He managed.

"Hey, Bling." The hands didn't stop their work, nor did the green eyes look up to him. Bling frowned.

"'Hey, Bling?' That's all you've got to say?"

"Yeah..." Logan drawled, uncertain, then remembered, "Oh, no; sorry. How was the trip?" He asked pleasantly, still paring carrots, still not making eye contact. "Did you just get in?"

"That's not what I meant..." Bling watched Logan carefully, weighing what he saw, and growing more uneasy about his reaction. This wasn't the 'usual' Logan at all...

"Oh." Logan stopped working for a moment, to consider, and looked up, but dared only the briefest glance at his friend before looking back to his task. "Did Sandra get her sister married off alright?"

Bling shook his head, frustrated. "Logan, I stopped at the hospital when I got back in town just now..." He took a second look at the items spread along the counter, and abruptly interrupted his own thoughts to ask, exasperation finally surfacing, "What are you doing?"

Logan surveyed the work table himself, then glanced up to grin at his therapist. "Picnic," he beamed – and went back to his work.

"Logan, I talked to Sam – he said something about hypothermia, but that you never got back to him after last night." The man's discomfort at matters was giving way to greater frustration –and even more worry – for his complex client, the one he'd sworn to keep safe and healthy. "He called you – _I_ called, a little while ago – and all we got was your machine."

"Oh. Right..." Logan tried to suppress his insistent happiness, realizing that Bling really _had_ a reason to have some concerns, and not proud that he'd caused both Bling and Sam to worry. The jig would be up soon, and Logan had apologies to make. He started to speak, but Bling was already going on...

"...and I get here to find you building a picnic." Bling pulled out his phone. "Maybe Sam can see you this afternoon..."

Logan glanced up at his trainer and finally laughed softly, "No, really, Bling; I'm fine." He looked back to the spread he'd prepared, the dip and vegetables, some pita and cheese, even the cold roast from the other night, and laughed at the picture it painted. "Really." Even _he_ might have a hard time believing himself, in the circumstances...

"A picnic?" Bling demanded.

"It was a request..."

Both men looked up to the very feminine, apologetic voice from the hall, where Max stood, still in Logan's t-shirt but more demurely outfitted in a pair of his sweatpants now too, the oversized, bloused- up fabric adding to the picture. She shrugged and pushed off to come into the kitchen.

"Kinda mean to make him work so soon after freezing himself, I know. But he's doing okay, Bling, I promise."

Bling's eyes narrowed, a whole new set of suspicions there now. "And you were hungry..."

"Always" she laughed. She looked to Logan and apologized, "I'm sorry to come interrupt your smooth handling of things, without your asking... but he just wasn't buying it." Seeing Logan's delighted amusement at her appearance, Max looked up to Bling and, buoyed with how well the 'winsome female' routine worked on Logan, decided to try a variant of the same on the therapist. "He was out of it for a while, Bling, but he really _is_ much better. I stuck around, you know, to be sure he was okay... and we brought him up to temp just fine here. I've had some training too, you know – and I used standard field technique to warm him up, just as soon as we got back..."

"'Field technique.'" Bling repeated. "Remind me to try that one on Sandra..."

"I'd certainly recommend it," Logan quipped, eyebrows wagging.

"You're not helping." Max looked over to Logan, trying to look miffed but failing at it. Logan chuckled and went back to his work. "I swear, nothing but warming up and sleep, last night 'til this morning. Sam said as long as he was back to his normal self by morning, he'd be cleared for ... well, you know... cleared."

Logan chortled.

Bling finally drew a deep breath, eyebrows lifting way up on his brow in a look of surrender, and shook his head, at some level pleased that the two had finally, it seemed, bowed to the inevitable in their relationship, but wishing it hadn't been so close on the heels of hypothermia. "Fine. But you won't mind if I at least check your temp and blood pressure?"

Logan looked up at him with a long-suffering look of discomfort, as Max said "'course not." Then, realizing what she'd done, she actually colored and stammered, "I mean ... if you wanted to take _mine_. Logan can decide for himself..."

The moment brought quick laughter from Logan, melting his discomfort, pleased that she was working to maintain his dignity – or at least trying to remember it. "Hell, check us both." He chortled. "After all, you came all this way..."

XXIV.

Max had wandered into the workout room behind Logan and Bling, Logan refusing to let the trappings of medical intervention sully his beloved cooking space. As Bling slipped the small finger cuff on Logan's index finger and stuck the thermometer's cone in Logan's ear, Max came around to ask, "Bling, when I went out to get Logan, I had to leave my bike out in the bushes by the road. It's about twenty miles out, on the way toward Logan's cabin. If you could drive me out there to get my bike, it will keep Logan from running back out for another dose of rain and sleet so soon."

"Max, I'm fine," Logan protested, getting a dark look from Bling for fidgeting. "Besides..." he pouted a little for her. "I hate to see you leave, just now..."

"Yeah, you'll be late for the picnic," Bling drawled.

"You're going to have to decide what you want," Logan's eyebrows raised as he looked back up at his therapist, affecting an attitude that reminded Bling way too much of Sandra's 'teacher' mode. "After months of telling me to get 'back to things' ... and even a few of those months," he stole a guilty look toward Max, to see if she was listening. She was ... but he went on, bravely, "...you suggested that I ... make some efforts toward ... hooking up with Max. Here I'm making a _picnic_, and now you're taking tones..."

Bling looked at the man, seeing the happiness that lightened his eyes and cleared his brow, and finally sighed. "Max, what do you _really_ think?" Bling was having a hard time remaining stern. "Is all this the hypothermia, or is he actually just relaxing – and being insufferable about it?"

She grinned, glancing over the subject of their discussion, and drawled, "I'm pretty sure he's over the hypothermia. What _this_ is, I'm not even gonna cast a vote."

"Pay back," Logan muttered, grin never easing. "What else can I do, if he's always right?" He finally raised his eyes to look at Bling squarely, his appreciation clear and unashamed. "And I don't know anyone to whom I owe more..."

Bling met the look with his own, understanding fully all that Logan meant, moved both by what had happened to the man, what had gotten through – and that he would share it with him, even in front of Max, who stood by, her own smile soft and understanding. Though it took a moment, Bling finally drew himself up to lift his chin in a bit of a challenge and suggest, "bet you wish you'd paid attention, back when you had a chance."

Logan grinned roguishly. "Why do you think I was so quick to ask you to come work for me?"

Max's eyebrows lifted at that, and she looked up to Bling. "Sounds like the time to ask for a raise."

"No ... it sounds like the time for me to leave." He looked at the two, wearing expressions of happiness and comfort he'd never seen on either of them before. He turned to Logan, with a smirk. "You gonna be back to business tomorrow, or do I need to call ahead?"

"Back to business, I'm afraid, unless I can convince Max to take the day off."

"Max would lose her job for sure," she murmured, eyes only for Logan, "but I'll see if I can't get away for lunch." In the next moment, though, she looked back up to Bling and said, "do you mind running me out now?"

"Not a problem. And better than this one going back out in it."

"I'll just be a second..."

As Max darted back toward the bedroom, Bling looked back at his charge, the last bit of skepticism still apparent. "You're sure you're feeling alright?"

"I feel terrific. There are a lot of things I'm not sure about yet, but how I feel isn't one of them. Not only physically, and not only Max, but ... selfishly ... that thing about the mind being the primary sexual organ..." He shook his head, looking up to Bling, still amazed.

"Powerful stuff," Bling agreed.

"I think I'm going to have a lot of questions in the next few days," Logan admitted ruefully.

"Well, as you said – it's why you asked me to come work for you." Bling was finally grinning, Logan's success with this hurdle feeling as good as if it were his own.

"Yeah." Logan smiled, boyishly. "Thanks, Bling," he heard Max coming and continued, "for running Max out to get her bike, and ... for everything, all of it."

"Not a problem, man." The trainer shoved his hand in his pocket and pulled out his keys. "I stick around for the entertainment factor." He looked at Max and lifted his eyebrows. "I'll meet you in the hall."

As Bling moved off, Max turned back to Logan, a knee sliding along his thigh as she settled lightly on his lap and looped her arms around his neck. "You really do have to give him a raise," she glowed.

"Done." He met her lips softly, and when they broke the kiss, he whispered, "hurry back."

"As soon as I make sure Bling gets back into town, too," she agreed. "I'll be here faster than you can take that shower you wanted..."

"You're on." He let his hand trail along her thigh as she backed off his lap. "The picnic will be waiting..."

"As long as you're there too..." she leaned over for a final peck on his brow.

"Try to stop me..." he dared...

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO


	10. Chapter 10

**_Disclaimers and A/N:_** _Please see Chapter 1 for Challenges info and other details._

_**Reviews and comments** – pro, con, in-between– encouraged and enthusiastically considered. I promise. Once again, thanks for stopping by._

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

_**Winter's Chill**_

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

XXV.

Max let herself in quickly and primed the alarm system behind her, her anticipation again tickling her nerves, making her tummy quiver a little. _Not like heat at all_, she thought suddenly, the idea pleasing and relieving her. When in heat, one quick and uncaring act quelled any desire she'd have had, and kept it 'quelled' for a few months at a time. But with Logan ... _he_ raised the desire in her, not any internal calendar she might have ... and when he made love to her, he satisfied her and made her crave him all the more, all at once..._ not anything at all like being in heat_...

Coming down the hall she noted, with a twitch of curiosity, that since she'd gone, Logan had pulled closed the sliding door to his workout room. She went further into the penthouse looking for him, past the now- tidied kitchen, but before she got much further she heard the divider slide open and turned to see Logan come out of the training room, sliding the door closed again behind him, with a small, self- conscious smile. As she stood unmoving, waiting for him, he came up to her and took the hand she offered to ask, "Mission accomplished?"

"Um-hmmm." She nodded, nearly done in – he'd managed to fit in a shower while she was gone, she could tell, and the scent of his soap and shampoo rewoke the butterflies she felt in her stomach the night before. Her smile for him widened...

"Intact, none the worse for its overnight stay in the bushes?'

"Perfect," she agreed. With the navy jersey he'd pulled on after his shower, his eyes shone like emeralds. She was weakening...

"Good," he smiled, dimples appearing. "And safely downstairs?"

Max nodded and slipped to one knee, close beside his chair, and, snaking her arms up around his neck, leaned close to tip her forehead to his. After a moment, she pulled back a little to look him square in the eye and murmured, "I always wondered how this would feel..."

Having almost begun to imagine, while she was gone, that he'd been dreaming again, Logan had melted in the first moment he'd seen her back in his penthouse, and, when she reached for him, he felt his pulse quicken as he realized that she really did want him, too. At her words, then, he immediately fell for her line, her mood infectious. "What's that?" he asked huskily.

"To walk in, like this ... Kiss you ... like this..." She leaned in to linger sweetly on his lips, gently running her tongue along his teeth, playfully, then pulled back to whisper, "and say ... 'honey ... I'm home ...'"

XXVI.

She'd crawled into his lap, right there and then, pulling him close, his scent making her crazy, so fresh and near, his hair and skin still damp. "God, Logan, you smell delicious..." She let her mouth trail down his throat, nuzzling into the 'v' of his jersey and moving her hands down to its hem to snake her hands up under it...

He shivered.

Max managed to pull back a little, realizing that her hands must be ice on his shower- and- fleece warned skin, especially there, where his sensation could be spotty or confused, even hypersensitive. "I'm sorry," she whispered, "cold?"

"No, I..." Max looked into the expressive green eyes and saw that he looked overwhelmed, the look of self-consciousness still there. He tried a smile but colored a little as he did so, and looked away. "I just wasn't expecting..." He laughed, joking awkwardly, "I figured you hadn't eaten for so long you'd be faint with hunger."

She bit her lip, avoiding his gaze. "I'm ... pushing too hard..." One of her old fears _was_ proving true, then: she'd had no role models or guide to how to proceed in this, other than the hormone-filled rushes of the horn dogs at Crash, and the ero- sentimental fantasies of her room mates. Logan had not only had a decade more practice than she in the secret art of man- and- woman, but came to manhood in a world filled with sophistication and grace, elegance and perfection...

"Oh, no, Max..." he urged softly, "you're pushing just about right." As she looked back up to him in question, she saw his warm smile for her ... and the look he held in his eyes for her helped her believe that maybe, just maybe, all the country clubs and galas weren't what he expected ... or wanted. He raised a knuckle to trace along her jaw tenderly and admitted with a sad chuckle, "you've just thrown me, that's all ... Knocked me on my ass, actually." He saw the lingering question, the thread of doubt there, and knew he might ease it if he explained. "In all the time I imagined us like this ... me holding you ... finding ways we could make love ... I guess I saw it all in variations of whether you'd ... flat out reject me, if you'd let me down easily or just laugh ... or if you might not mind it so much ... or might even enjoy it too ... but I guess I just hadn't allowed for the possibility that ... _you'd_ want to initiate any of this, with me..."

Looking at him a little sadly, she sighed, "that's what I meant." Still wishing she knew how to be at least a little more like the girls ... like the _women_ ... he was used to romancing ... still wishing she knew more of this world than she did, she admitted, "Not what country club girls do..."

"_Max..._" He shook his head in amazement, that she didn't see it. "You've got to know by now that I am relieved and ever grateful you're _not_ a 'country club girl'..." The change in her eyes, the trust he saw returning, was reassuring ... and he went on, "It just never dawned on me ... In fact, when you came in, I had just started wondering what I'd do if you changed your mind ... and didn't come back." He reddened softly, shrugged, looking apologetically into the dark, dark eyes. But what he found there gave him strength he wouldn't have had twelve hours before, to continue, "ever since the chair ... I hadn't imagined that any woman would want to initiate _any_thing with me ... but, you, Max, for _you_ to want to do this..." his fingertips unfolded from along her jaw to trace up along her temple. "It's going to take me a bit of time to believe it all."

"Believe it." She whispered, fiercely, and found herself finally saying something she'd wanted to say, for a long time now. "You're not the chair, Logan." Her eyes were huge, sparking in her intensity, shining with sudden moisture. "It's become a euphemism we've both used, for your injury, your paralysis, for all of it: your being 'back in the chair'; your asking if it was easier for me with you 'in the chair'... It's a great piece of equipment, and you're lucky you could afford a good one, even a second one, especially for basketball. And yeah, it might even be what some people see first now, when they look at you. But it's a _thing_, Logan..." she breathed, "it's not _you_, it's not even a part of you. _You're_ not the chair."

And at that moment Max had sealed his fate by giving him the greatest gift he'd ever been given in his life: permission to be _human_ again ... Overwhelmed, he pulled her close, crushing her in his strong arms. "Max ... I love you..." he managed, fighting the emotions still rattling him.

And as Logan found his humanity again in her arms, Max began to believe in her own: if such an extraordinary man could love her, maybe she _was_ more than just a science experiment, after all...

XXVII.

"...you must be starving..."

They'd held each other, long moments, in the hall; picnic forgotten, the only sounds their hearts, and lips, and occasionally gulped, emotional breathing. Logan was back, _all_ of him, and Max had returned to him yet again; not a dream at all, she had proven to be corporeal, and finally, he relaxed into the freedom she'd granted him, to be a whole, feeling, caring _man_ again, not merely equipment or programs or adaptive _any_thing. Hell, he'd worn glasses for years without thinking it diminished him, he found himself musing ... how could this be so different?

At his words, Max had gulped a small chuckle and nodded, looking a bit contrite in her admission. Logan laughed warmly and let his lips trace across her hairline. "You'd better be. I have enough food in there to feed a family of four."

Glancing at the bare dining table, and having seen that the kitchen had been tidied, she smiled in slow anticipation, asking, "where, 'in there?'"

"Ah, well... I promised a picnic, didn't I?" He pivoted and moved them, Max still in his lap, back to the training room. He stopped in the hall before the closed door, apologizing, "I wish it could be in the bedroom, Max, but to get what I have _here_ all the way back there..."

"Bedroom's for beginners," she whispered in his ear, then leaned back and smiled as she looked deep into the amazing eyes before her. "We're ready to broaden our horizons, aren't we?"

"I am if you are," his quick grin a relaxed, happy one, and he gently guided her up off his lap to lean over and pull back the dividing door. "Our own, private picnic – warm, dry ... and guaranteed ant-free."

Max was captivated by the scene before her. Walking in slowly, she saw the room transformed, the effort to which Logan had gone to make their picnic special making her breath catch, audibly. She saw why he'd set everything up here; he'd pulled out the large, thick mat Bling used for some of their work, and had laid it opened across the floor, covering it with a soft quilt, then laid a smaller tablecloth off at the side, tossing extra blankets and pillows nearby. He'd arranged the plates of food across the cloth and had a bottle of wine cooling in a silver wine sleeve at one end, crystal stems nearby, linen napkins and silverware at the other. And surrounding their quilted island, he'd managed greenery, which Max soon saw were several pots of trailing vines like ivy and similar plants lovingly tended and now trailed along the floor... the natural light still entering from the skylight was soft, and the candles he'd lit and put on the tables safely nearby were more scent than light...

"Oh, Logan, it's beautiful..." she breathed, finally looking back to him. He'd done so much in the brief hour she was gone...

"I was on a pretty short schedule, to get things out. And Mrs. Moreno came to the rescue–she let me borrow her plants..." Max saw that he'd been waiting, anxious for the 'picnic' to be something special, and he watched for her reaction with a boyish, hopeful look. "You like it?"

"It's perfect." She wavered, turning to look at the room again, and admitted, back to him as she spoke, low, "no one's ever done a picnic for me, before..."

At that moment, there was no sign of the streetwise, cocky secret soldier, but only a woman, touched by the caring and kindness of the man who loved her, still wondering what was real and what would be stolen from her, still wondering if she'd find herself back in the harshness of the streets below even after the world he'd given her in these hours. He came up behind her and spoke softly, raising a hand to thread fingers through hers. "Max..." he crooned...

She turned and her face lit again for him. Not all of the ghosts were gone yet but belief was there, her faith in him. "It's perfect," she repeated, and gracefully sunk to her knees beside him, her arms seeking his. For brief minutes she rested there in his arms, feeling a safety and comfort she'd never known anywhere else... until her tummy rumbled. The perfect comic relief made each of them laugh, and her ghosts were banished for the day. Max gently touched Logan's scruffy jaw, sweetly, then stood again, turning to cross back to the edge of the quilts. Leaning to pull off one boot, then the other, Max set them aside and knelt on the soft, inviting surface before her. Again turning to the man who'd created all this for her, she reached out a hand and urged, "C'mon, Logan, come join me."

"I was hoping you'd ask," he teased. "Go ahead, get started – we can't have you swooning in hunger..." Moving up to the edge of the quilt-covered mat, Logan locked his brakes and smoothly shifted to the floor, his movement up onto the mat's center making him far less self-conscious than had his transfer into bed only hours before. _What a difference she's made, _he thought fleetingly, _when she's shown me so perfectly that this just doesn't matter..._

As he settled closer to her, mid-quilt, he watched as, sitting forward on her knees, she daintily peeked into all the bowls and platters, then lifted a plate toward him. "For you?"

"You go first. I'll catch up." He leaned back on his arms and watched her, appreciatively. _She's had so little... and had to fight all her life for every small thing she's managed... she's lived on the run, underground ... and yet this beautiful, sensitive woman has grown from all that... she deserves some peace, some comfort ... _

"It's fantastic, Logan; come have some."

The chocolate eyes had turned back to him and nudged him back to the present, and he grinned, taking the plate she offered, but setting it down first, reaching toward the glasses. "Did you want some wine? It's light; I know it's still early..."

"Not so early," she laughed, "nearly dinnertime by the clock – we just got a late start, what with the morning..." she twinkled, reminding him of the several hours in bed they'd spent. "I'll get the wine but you get some food... I'm still in charge of your recovery, you know..."

"Ah, so _that's_ what all this is," he nodded, broadly. "So I have to run off the road, on a regular basis, to get this kind of attention? It's not going to be as believable next summer..."

"Don't you dare," she turned back toward him and planted a fast, decisive, noisy kiss on his lips before turning back to her food. "I don't like what worry does to my appetite."

His eyebrows lifted. "You were worried about me?" The question came out quickly, in that brief moment when such a thought was still new and surprising. As quickly, though, Max turned back to look at him with an expression that raised another self-conscious grin from him, and she rolled her eyes.

"I'll pretend that you didn't just say that... otherwise I'll have to call Sam and tell him that your brain was frosted after all, that you've developed amnesia and have forgotten everything that's happened, oh, over the past _year_..."

"Max..." he tried his best apologetic smile, endearing and as sincere as he could make it look. "It must've justbeen the hunger talking..."

"That's better." Max grinned, lifting his plate back to him. "The dip is perfect, by the way. I'd recommend it."

"I'll try some." Logan stretched toward the makeshift buffet and filled his plate too, accepting a glass of wine from Max and setting it on the floor nearby, a sturdier surface than the mat. As she ate, Max watched Logan and, realizing that he wouldn't be all that comfortable if he was forced to use one arm as a prop for stability there on the floor, offered, "Hey, want something to use as a back rest? I could probably find something..."

As she was looking around, Logan grinned a little and admitted, "Don't need it – Bling's had me working on a new trick." Setting his plate off to the side, Logan shifted to draw one leg, then the other, in a sort of cross- legged position before him. Lifting and shifting a little, he carefully adjusted, then smiled broadly and lifted his hands, showing her the result. "I've got to learn to just trust that Bling is always right – but I swear when he was showing me this, I had no reason to think I'd _need_ to be sitting on the floor." Workouts and pressure reduction notwithstanding, Bling had shown him that "broadening his base" would let him sit more stably, helping compensate for abs not as dependable as they'd once been. Not only did he think he'd not need it, but he was certain he'd never show Max how he got into the position, dragging his feet up under him – but things change. _Damn it, Bling_, he smiled to himself yet again.

"That's good," she grinned as he balanced his plate in his 'lap,' turning back to her own food, unconcerned.

_I stew and worry about what she'd think if she saw that, what she'd make of it being so awkward – and she barely stops eating. That's how it should be,_ Logan marveled yet again at Max's ease with it all. With a loud, contented sigh, Logan set about stuffing the roast, veggies and dip on his plate into one of the pitas, and grinned as he saw Max watching _that_ action with far more curiosity and interest than she had his pulling into position. "_Here's_ the real way to eat all this..." Drawing the bread around the bulging contents as best he could, Logan managed a big, ravenous bite of his creation and found it was the best thing he'd tasted in many, many months...

XXVIII.

The 'picnic grove' had lost its natural light some time before, and the lovers lay back, wrapped in soft quilts in the candlelight, sated with food and wine and lovemaking, now comfortably cradled in each other's arms. Max sighed, wanting time to stop, wanting everything outside Logan's inviting penthouse to disappear.

"This has been the best weekend of my life, Logan, despite the terrible way it started."

"Not so terrible," his voice was velvet, soothing, as his fingertips gently traced along the curve of her back. "It all worked out ... and it's been even better than the ones I dreamed – and that's saying a lot..."

She smiled softly against his chest, again nuzzling the soft blond hairs there. "I don't want this to ever end," she admitted, sounding a little lost. "Now I know what you were feeling, that first night... it almost feels like if I leave ... I'll have imagined this, and we won't be the same..."

"Then stay..." He pulled back a little to look into her eyes. "Max, you can stay here, as long as you like, you know that, don't you? Anything you want ... anything I have, is yours; if you want to stay right here, with me, like this ... I can't think of anything I could want more..." He let his lips brush hers, pausing there for sweet, long moments, then pulled back to say, "I don't want to push for anything you're not ready to try. But anything, Max... you know you don't need to stay at Jam Pony any longer than you want to ... you don't have to go back to your apartment if you don't want to stay there..." He nuzzled her a little and smiled, "and that's for whenever you want – you say the word, tomorrow, next week... now ... no hurry or pressure or whining from me, I promise ... just ... any of it, _all_ of it, yours to chose ... whenever you say..."

Max smiled widely, touched yet again by Logan's generous spirit and the love she felt for him. "Logan Cale, where did you come from?" She burrowed into his strong arms, and, as she drew a deep, contended breath, made her decision...

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO


	11. Epilogue

**_Disclaimers and A/N:_** _Please see Chapter 1 for Challenges info and other details._

_**Thanks to all of you **who have hung in with this one, with special thanks to those who have taken the time to leave comments along the way. Reviews and comments, as always, appreciated and ever solicited. _

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

_**Winter's Chill**_

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

EPILOGUE

_Three weeks later_

After a full day at the hospital, Bling arrived at the penthouse precisely at seven, as scheduled, for his therapy/training session with Logan. He'd always looked forward to their sessions, even through the challenging, rough times early in Logan's recovery. No matter his approach with Logan, his demeanor of cool detachment or amusement or every tactic in between, he'd always held enormous respect for the man who, in secret, did so much for the city, and was honored to be of whatever assistance and support he could be...

'_...the city,'_ Bling corrected himself, _the state. The western seaboard, and on past even that... _

But in the past weeks Logan had been changed, transformed, and their workout sessions were full of jests and chuckles and Logan's enthusiasm, his interest in staying strong and keeping fit. _The stuff of great literature_, Bling mused, _the love of a good woman cures all..._ and since Max and Logan had finally stopped denying the obvious, Logan Cale started looking forward, started to look past cures that weren't to be, and started to believe in life again.

Bling was gratified – and elated – to see it. He counted both Max and Logan as friends now, especially Logan, to whom he'd grown closer than nearly anyone since Peter had died. Both Max and Logan were extraordinary individuals, for vastly different reasons; each was the sort of person who could have gone a lifetime without meeting someone who was understanding – or worthy – of the promise each held. From the earliest moments he'd seen the two interact, Bling privately believed that it was a gift of fate that they'd found each other, and that most of their arguments or frustrations or self-doubt came from fighting that truth, rather than just surrendering to the inevitable. If there were such a thing in the universe as soul mates, Bling believed, these two were just that.

Each had changed in the handful of weeks since Logan's rescue from the ditch. Max had seemed to relax into being "herself" even as she herself discovered, through Logan's loving attention, just who she could be. She had a new, quiet confidence that she didn't always need to front the tough-guy act, even around him, and certainly not with Logan; her trust in her physical skills and strength was now mirrored in her trust that she could be a woman in love, a woman with emotions that might be touched. Sure, the couple times Bling had seen her with her Jam Pony friends she was still cocky, street-wise Max, but even there, she seemed more settled, content – happy. It looked good on her.

And Logan – Logan had been less manic about his work; dedicated, but not as driven as he'd been when it was his refuge from reality, his full-time escape. He'd begun to allow himself more time off the computer, away from the punishing, twenty or thirty hour research jags that used to consume him. And these past weeks, he'd barely called on anyone else to do reconnaissance or gather info, as far as Bling could tell, but had been doing most of it on his own from the phone or on line. And happily for the both of them, every evening, usually after a therapy session, Logan had been cuddled up with the woman who adored him as much as he did her...

But upon letting himself in the penthouse this evening, Bling found the place quiet, and darker than it had been for a while. He wondered if something had come up and he'd missed a call from Logan canceling their session. Walking toward the front rooms, he was surprised to find the computer room not only empty, but dark. Even as Logan had scaled back, he didn't shut it all down completely. Turning back toward the hall, Bling looked toward the bedroom. "Logan?" he tried.

"Hey, Bling."

The man's voice was soft, subdued, like the room on down the hall. It was a nearly forgotten sight now, Logan sitting in his darkened living room, staring out at the night cityscape, a pose Bling hadn't seen since Logan and Max had finally gotten past all their hang-ups and fears to become the intimate partners they were meant to be. Bling frowned, but went on to sit on the couch arm, at Logan's right hand. _Not trouble in paradise, not as close as these two had become..._ "Hey." No beating around the bush on this one, he decided, and said softly, "haven't seen you in this spot for a while."

Without turning to face him, Logan laughed softly, a short sound, without humor, but said nothing.

"Anything you want to talk about?"

Logan finally glanced up at the strong figure, and, after looking away for another moment, nodded. "Yeah," he murmured, "yeah..." He sighed, and after another silence, began, "Bling... you know that Eyes Only has always been important to me, even before I was shot. But I think you said it first, and Max has, too, more than once ... that afterward ... well, I got into some of the work too obsessively, to the point that I ... wasn't thinking about anything ... or any_one_ else. No, worse – I was in denial about what I was doing to so many people – you, Matt, everyone in the Informant Net... and most of all ... to Max..."

The tone surprised Bling. "All of us have done what we've done because it was right," the therapist insisted, quietly.

"Not Max. At least not at first, and not with my dragging her into it. Think about it, Bling – she has gotten the most dangerous assignments, has put herself at risk time after time, just because I asked her to. And while everyone else had to fear those we were investigating, she had _two_ enemies every time she went out – the target, _and_ Manticore. Every time she went out and used her particular talents, she risked exposure, capture..." Logan frowned. "Maybe she had three enemies – even while I thought I was falling in love with her, _I_ was sitting here safe and sound, and risking her safety and her freedom every single time – just because I was so wrapped up in my own childish need to play investigative reporter and pretend I'd never been shot." He drew a deep breath, clearly pained, and murmured, "if anything had happened to her, Bling, because of my pathological denial..."

"Well, nothing has. She was trained for that work, Logan, she's known the risks each time, and how to avoid them."

"She may have been trained, but she never asked for any of it. Not for Manticore – and not for Eyes Only. Hell, she tried to do the opposite; she _ran_ from it. What I asked her to do, she fought doing at first; she flat out refused that first time, out of self-preservation. She was brought back first by guilt, for what happened to me – and then by blackmail, my holding information on her family hostage to her doing my errands. After that, she just did whatever I asked ... all as a favor, to me. And I just _kept_ asking, for more and more. How could I do that to her? Well, to any of you, but you and the ones in the 'Net volunteered. With Max ... I was no different from Manticore. I forced her into it."

Bling was quiet for several moments, hearing the self-directed disgust and bitterness in the man's voice. Some of the old pain was back, and though Bling sensed it needn't harm his new connection with Max – it was hard to see Logan beat himself up, especially when it was because of his work. "Have you talked this over with Max?" he asked, trying reason.

Logan closed his eyes, shaking his head. "No. I know what she'll say; she'll deny it too, just as you did. She'll say she never did anything she didn't want to do." The green eyes opened and finally, Logan looked at his friend. "We all know that's not true. And we all know she'll keep doing it all, as long as I ask." He sighed. "No matter how selfish it might be ... I can't lose her, Bling ... and I can't put her at risk anymore, especially not with Manticore still hunting her."

Bling watched Logan struggle with these revisiting demons, and sensed that a difficult decision had been faced – and, it appeared, made. Heavily, he finally spoke. "Well – I'm not conceding your point, but I suspect you're not going to be easily dissuaded from it, at least for the moment. So ... given all that ... what are you going to do about it? Just stop using Max for Eyes Only?"

"I thought about it," Logan nodded. "But then it struck me that that's not enough. What about you? Or Matt? Or any of the others?"

"Oh, now wait a minute, Logan; it's different for any of us who volunteered..."

"Is it?" The green eyes locked onto his now, the gaze intense. "How did all this turn into a private police force and tribunal, without constitutional limitations, from a group of sources gathered for some freelance articles?"

"You've done more for this city than any of the administrations since the Pulse, Logan, and you've helped clean up the entire West Coast, the countless drug and weapons traders, and even more corrupt politicians; you know that..."

"Pretty easy when you don't have to follow the law..." Eyes Only muttered.

"Like the police or mayors or any city counsels have?" Bling countered.

"Doesn't make it right." He shook his head. "It's gotten out of hand, Bling. It's more likely every day we'll be found out here, anyway. Before anyone else is hurt..." He trailed, unable to continue.

Bling looked closely at his employer – his friend – and, in sudden understanding, continued for him, barely believing his own words as he heard them, "you're going to pull the plug..."

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

_**A/N: So ends S1 of this particular little AU DA ... and, I hope, from here, we soon will begin its S2...**_

_**S**_


End file.
